Plenary Session 1: Virtual Asia/Pacific

Kylie Price is Head of Research Technology at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, New Zealand’s leading independent biomedical institute, which she joined after earning her M.S. in Cell and Molecular Bioscience at Victoria University of Wellington. During her tenure at the Malaghan Institute, she has helped attract over $11.5 million in philanthropic support and grown the Institute’s shared resource laboratory into a renowned centre of excellence. She and her staff of seven provide state-of-the art flow and spectral cytometry, bioimaging, immunohistochemistry, genomics and bioinformatics services to Malaghan researchers and their collaborators worldwide. Her aspiration is to develop innovative cytometry solutions to address researcher needs, providing them with expertise and access to multiple technologies platforms to advance their research goals.

Rob Salomon is an experienced cytometerist and technical scientist. With over 15 years supporting multiple cytometry projects he has provided technical support to thousands of projects. With expertise in the area of deep cellular characterisation, he also has active collaborations across diverse field including cytometry, genomics, photonics and microfluidics. Since 2014 Rob has worked to advance the field of Single Cell Genomics. He is currently the Operations and Technology Manager at the Child Cancer Liquid Biopsy program and undertaking a PhD through the Institute of Biomedical Materials and Devices.

Keisuke Goda is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tokyo, an adjunct professor in the Institute of Technological Sciences at Wuhan University, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA. He obtained a BA degree from UC Berkeley summa cum laude in 2001 and a PhD from MIT in 2007, both in physics. At MIT, he worked on the development of gravitational-wave detectors in the LIGO group which led to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. After several years of work on high-speed imaging and microfluidics at UCLA, he joined the University of Tokyo as a professor. His research group focuses on the development of serendipity-enabling technologies based on molecular imaging and spectroscopy together with microfluidics and computational analytics to push the frontier of science. He is a deputy editor of APL Photonics (AIP Publishing) and an associate editor of Cytometry Part A (Wiley). He has published >350 journal and conference papers, filed >30 patents, and received numerous awards such as Japan Academy Medal, JSPS Prize, and WIRED Audi Innovation Award. He is a fellow of SPIE and RSC.

Distinguished Professor Dayong Jin directs the Australian Research Council IDEAL Research Hub and Institute for Biomedical Materials & Devices (IBMD), at the University of Technology Sydney. His research has been in the physical, engineering and interdisciplinary sciences. He is a technology developer with expertise covering optics, luminescent materials, sensing, automation devices, microscopy imaging, and analytical chemistry to enable rapid detection of cells and molecules and engineering of sensors and photonics devices.  He is a former ISAC Scholar (2007) and the winner of the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Scientific Research in 2015, the Australian Academy of Science John Booker Medalist in 2017, and the Prime Minister’s Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year 2017.

Professor Di Yu was awarded his PhD from the Australian National University in 2007, followed by a postdoctoral training at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research from 2008-2010. He established the independent research laboratory at Monash University in 2011 and then returned to ANU in 2017. In 2019, he joined the University of Queensland Diamantian Institute and was appointed as Professor in Immunology.  Professor Di Yu’s research focuses on the function of T cell subsets in human health and disease, making major contributions to the discovery of follicular helper and cytotoxic T cells. Through understanding mechanisms underlying T cell differentiaation and function, his research team aims to design new strategies to monitor and modulate the immune system to treat autoimmune diseases, infection and cancer. He has published in top-tier journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, Nature Medicine and Immunity and led human clinical trials for vaccination and autoimmune diseases. He is currently a Bellberry-Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellow and was ranked as Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2019).