Brendan Manning is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Molecular Metabolism at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), with additional faculty affiliations in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. Prof. Manning received his B.S. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and his Ph.D. from Yale University. Following postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty of the then newly established Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases at HSPH (renamed Molecular Metabolism in 2019).

Meryem B. Baghdadi is a researcher in the field of stem cell and development biology and has made significant contributions to the understanding of stem cell niches and their regulation in both homeostasis and disease contexts.

Philippe Sansonetti, MD, trained in infectious diseases in Paris and in bacterial genetics at Institut Pasteur, Paris, then at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research as a post-doctoral scientist. He is currently Emeritus Professor at Institut Pasteur and at the Collège de France where he has been lecturing for 12 years at the interface between basic microbiology and emerging infectious diseases.