Keynote Session

Samuel Bogoch MD, PhD
is chairman of Replikins, Ltd., in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and faculty at both Harvard Medical School and the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Bogoch is the founder and chairman of the Foundation for Research on the Nervous System in Massachusetts. He is the founder and chairman of Oncolab, Inc., and Replikins, Ltd., BVI, and Replikins, LLC, Massachusetts. Dr. Bogoch's areas of research include chemical structure and virus receptor properties of brain gangliosides, inhibition of virus attachment to brain cells, structure and function of brain glycoproteins, biochemistry of cancer, serum antibodies to cancer antigens, the replikins, genomic peptides associated with rapid replication, quantitative relation of replikins to virus outbreaks, and advance warning of H5N1.

Antonio J. Ricco, PhD
is Chief Technologist for Small Payloads and Instrumentation in NASA Ames Research Center’s Small Spacecraft Division, on loan from Stanford University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Center for Integrated Systems. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute at Dublin City University in Ireland. At NASA, Ricco develops remote, autonomous bioanalytical systems for fundamental space biological studies; serves as chief technologist for the GeneSat, PharmaSat, and O/OREOS flight projects; and is instrument lead for the MEMS-based NIR spectrometer on the LCROSS lunar impactor. His appointment in Dublin, Ireland, focuses on the development of next-generation integrated point-of-care medical diagnostic devices. Ricco is Vice President of the Transducer Research Foundation and a member of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group.

Lembit Rägo MD, PhD
is Coordinator, Quality Assurance and Safety: Medicines Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1989 to 1999, he served the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia as adviser on pharmacology. He was the founder and the first director general of the Estonian Drug Regulatory Authority, State Agency of Medicines, from 1991 to 1999, and from 1998 to 1999 was president of the Estonian Society of Pharmacology. In December 1999, he joined the World Health Organization (WHO) Headquarters, Geneva, as Coordinator, Quality Assurance and Safety: Medicines Team in the Department of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy. The unit hosts two WHO Expert Committees and three expert committee-like bodies which are cornerstones to WHO work in the area of medicine nomenclature, quality standards, regulatory guidelines, safety and pharmacovigilance. Since 2000, he has been the WHO observer to the International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) Steering Committee and to the ICH Global Cooperation Group (GCG) and the MedDRA Management Board.