Professor Tuomas Knowles is a Professor of Physical Chemistry and Biophysics at Department of Chemistry and Cavendish Laboratory at Department of Physics, at University of Cambridge, UK. Tuomas is a co-director at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, and is a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Professor Knowles is internationally recognized for his pioneering work on protein aggregation, particularly in elucidating the kinetics and mechanisms underlying amyloid formation associated with neurodegenerative diseases.

His research integrates biophysical chemistry, microfluidics, and advanced microscopy to explore the self-assembly and misfolding of proteins, as well as the development of novel biomaterials. He is a co-founder of the biotechnology companies Fluidic Analytics, Wren Therapeutics, Xampla and Transition Bio. Notably, his work has uncovered how protein aggregates grow and spread in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and how molecular chaperones and small molecules can modulate these pathways.

Professor Archa Fox is a Professor in the School of Human Sciences and the School of Molecular Sciences at the University of Western Australia, and an affiliate investigator with the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research. She is the Director of the Australian Centre for RNA Therapeutics in Cancer and leads the RNA Innovation Foundry at UWA, spearheading efforts to develop RNA-based treatments for aggressive cancers such as pancreatic, lung, and triple-negative breast cancer.

Professor Fox is internationally recognized for her discovery of paraspeckles—membraneless nuclear bodies scaffolded by the long noncoding RNA NEAT1—and her subsequent research on how these structures regulate gene expression and contribute to cancer progression. Her work has advanced understanding of RNA-protein interactions and phase separation in the nucleus, providing new insights into gene regulation and potential therapeutic targets.

Professor Tetsuro Hirose is a molecular biologist at University of Osaka, where he leads the RNA Biofunction Laboratory in the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences. His research focuses on the architectural roles of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in organizing nuclear structure and regulating gene expression.

He is renowned for his pioneering work on paraspeckles—membraneless nuclear bodies scaffolded by the lncRNA NEAT1—and has elucidated how these structures form through liquid-liquid phase separation. His recent studies have revealed that specific domains within NEAT1 dictate the core-shell architecture of paraspeckles, maintaining their distinct identity within the nucleus. Professor Hirose's work has significantly advanced our understanding of how lncRNAs contribute to cellular organization and stress responses.