Opening Keynote Speaker
Keynote Title: “An Asian Regional Funders’ Coalition: Concept and Value-Proposition”
Dr. Hani Kim
Dr. Hani Kim’s educational background is in biology, and she later extended her research into public health. She currently plays an active role in global health as the Executive Director of the RIGHT Foundation. Her career includes positions as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology, followed by roles as a researcher and professor at Toronto General Hospital and the University of Toronto. She also served as a research director at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and worked as a program officer at the Gates Foundation. Hani Kim received her bachelor’s degree from Queen’s University in Canada and holds master’s degree in pharmacology and clinical pathology from the University of Toronto. She additionally obtained a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in the United States.
Closing Keynote Speaker
Keynote Title: "Unravelling the complexity of malaria drug resistance by systems biology approaches"
Prof. Zbynek Bozdech
Prof. Zbynek Bozdech is a renowned malaria researcher based at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, where he serves as Professor of Biological Sciences. He earned his Master’s in Biochemistry from Charles University and completed his PhD at McGill University, later joining Joseph DeRisi’s lab at UCSF, where he co-authored a landmark study mapping the Plasmodium falciparum transcriptome. His research combines transcriptomics, proteomics, and epigenetics to uncover the regulatory mechanisms of malaria parasites, with a focus on drug resistance, particularly artemisinin resistance linked to K13 mutations. Prof. Bozdech has made significant contributions to understanding gene expression and epigenetic regulation in Plasmodium, helping guide the search for novel antimalarial therapies. His work is widely collaborative and international in scope, with partnerships across Southeast Asia and beyond.