Dr. Wei-Chiang Shen is John A. Biles Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Southern California's School of Pharmacy in Los Angeles. Dr. Shen received his PhD in bio-organic chemistry from Boston University, Massachusetts. He has many years of experience on the conjugation of drug to macromolecules, including poly (amino acids), transferrin and antibodies. His current focus of research is on recombinant fusion proteins and cell-penetrating peptides. Dr. Shen has published about 150 papers, mostly in the area of drug delivery. He is an inventor or co-inventor of 16 issued U.S. patents and a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Jennica L. Zaro is a Research Assistant Professor at the School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Her main research projects are focused on targeted delivery of peptide and protein drugs and on recombinant bifunctional fusion proteins as therapeutics. Dr. Zaro is also the Core Director of the Translational Research Laboratory. Prior to joining the university, Dr. Zaro received her PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Southern California, where she focused on the design and characterization of peptide carriers for protein drugs. In addition, she has held several roles in the pharmaceutical industry, where she developed formulations for aerosol products and designed and validated analytical methods for protein drugs.