Speaker

Dr. Kate Qi is the Chief Executive Officer of SG Diagnostics Pte Ltd (Singapore) and SG Diagnostics (HK)Limited, leading efforts in advancing point-of-care diagnostics for chronic and infectious diseases across Asia. A scientist-turned-entrepreneur, she holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Nanyang Technological University and has over 10 years of cross-disciplinary experience in nanomaterials, biosensors, and translational diagnostics. Dr. Qi has successfully led R&D teams, commercialized diagnostic platforms, and driven regulatory and IP strategies. Her work spans multiple research grants and a portfolio of seven patents. She previously held leadership roles at NTU and Nanjing Tembusu Institute. Under her leadership, SG Diagnostics has deployed innovative diagnostic solutions in over 20% of the clinics and expanded operations into Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to tackle major population health challenges. Her mission is to make healthcare more accessible, decentralized, and data-driven through scalable innovations.

Dr Qin graduated from Faculty of Medicine, Suzhou Medical College in 1980, received Master’s degree of Medicine from the Suzhou Medical College in 1985 and Doctor’s degree of Pharmacology from the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1994. From 1994-1999, he finished postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health USA (NIH) and, from 1999-2003, he was employed as a lecturer and assistant investigator at Harvard University. From 2003 to 2023, he was working as a professor of Pharmacology, graduate student supervisor, Director of Institute of traditional Chinese Medicine at Suzhou University. Now he is the director of Institute of Health Technology, Suzhou Gaobo Vocational College. He is an associate director of Anti-aging Branch of Chinese Gerontology and Geriatrics Society, a member of Editorial Committee of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica. Dr Zheng-Hong Qin, has been engaged in pharmacology teaching and research for about 40 years. He has trained nine postdocs, 25 PhD students and 67 master’s students.There are many innovative achievements in the study of immune modulation and applications of cobra neurotoxin in autoimmune diseases and neurological diseases, He has published about 250 SCI papers and published three monographs (with total citations more than 26000 times, H-index 74). He was named as the most cited Chinese scholar in 11 consecutive years from 2014-2024. He is listed as one of global top 2% scientist in the world and one of 100 most-influential pharmacologist in China.

Dr. Qu Jian, M.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor, and Deputy Chief Pharmacist at the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University. A Yale-trained pharmacologist (Ph.D. in Pharmacology, CSU-Yale Joint Program), he serves on key national committees including the Youth Committee of the Chinese Pharmacological Society and the Clinical Pharmacy Branch of the China Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics. His editorial roles include reviewing forCancer LettersandCNS Neuroscience & Therapeuticsand serving on the Editorial Board ofCancer Drug Resistance. Dr. Qu’s research focuses onepigenetic pharmacology, pharmacogenomics, and personalized medicine, with 94 SCI publications (62 as first/corresponding author) in elite journals such asMolecular CancerandJournal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, including 6 papers with IF > 10 (peak IF: 33.9). He leads 9 major grants (NSFC, Hunan Provincial Foundation) and contributes to national initiatives like the “863 Program” and “Key New Drug Creation and Manufacturing Program,” driving innovations in precision drug therapy.

Dr. Feng Ren is the Co-CEO and CSO of Insilico Medicine, He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University in 2007 and embarked on a distinguished career in biopharmaceutical innovation. He began at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), where he spent a decade advancing drug discovery and development. In 2018, Dr. Ren joined Medicilon, a global contract research organization (CRO), as Senior Vice President and Head of Drug R&D Services, overseeing operations in both the Chemistry and Biology Departments with a team of over 600 chemists and biologists. Dr. Ren transitioned to Insilico Medicine in 2021 as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), where he assumed responsibility for advancing internal pipelines and fostering external collaborations in drug discovery and development. His exceptional contributions and leadership were recognized with a promotion to Co-CEO in June 2022. Under his guidance, Insilico R&D team successfully developed 22 pre-clinical candidate compounds, with 10 molecules received IND clearance in therapeutic areas including fibrosis, inflammation, oncology, and anti-viral treatments. Dr. Ren also played a pivotal role in driving four out-licensing agreements for proprietary pipelines as well as forging numerous strategic R&D collaborations, collectively valued at more than $3.5 billion. Dr. Ren publishes over 70 peer-reviewed papers and over 100 patents.

Dr. Rose Ritts, PhD is a Managing Partner of the Black Opus Special Situations Group (BOSS) Fund and the Black Venture Capital Consortium (BVCC) Fund, focused on early-stage investments into Emerging Technology companies. She has 35 years of experience as an investor, founder, and leader and has helped launch dozens of startups across biotech, healthcare and deeptech, with 28 achieving exits over $150mm, including 3 over $1B; and $400mm+ of monetized IP. Prior to joining BOSS and BVCC, Dr. Ritts spent 18 years as a Chief Innovation Officer at US universities and academic health centers, first in North Carolina at Duke University & Duke Health, and then in Philadelphia at Jefferson Health & Thomas Jefferson University. She served in the US Federal Government as a Program Manager at DARPA, in the Department of Defense, where she managed programs in MicroFluidic Systems and Cellular Computing and served as a member of government think tanks and proposal review panels across multiple government agencies. Dr. Ritts received her undergraduate degree from Duke University and earned both her PhD and MS degrees from Stanford University.

Dr. Yu Rong, an IEEE Senior Member and recognized high-level overseas talent by Shenzhen, serves on the AI for Good Technical Advisory Committee of the International Telecommunication Union. He received his Ph.D. from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2016. He joined Tencent AI Lab in 2017 as a principal researcher and moved to Alibaba DAMO Academy in 2024 to lead research on scientific multimodal models.

His work centers on graph learning and large language models, focusing on structural data modeling, cross-modal systems, and applications in drug discovery, healthcare, and materials science. He has over 11,000 Google Scholar citations (H-index 42). Two papers were were selected as the most influential papers by PaperDigest. He is listed among Stanford/Elsevier’s Top 2% Scientists, ranked second in the mainland China machine learning subfield of the AMiner Rising Star list (2020–2023), and was nominated as a Spotlight Recipient of the 2025 WAIC Yunfan Award.

At Tencent, he built the molecular property prediction module for the iDrug platform and led the championship team in the NeurIPS 2022 Open Catalyst Challenge. At DAMO, he led development of the “Lingchu” medical multimodal large model, surpassing the proprietary models such as GPT-4 in medical multimodal question answering.

Bob Rovinsky serves as Associate Director of Operations at B+labs, where he plays a central role in delivering on the organization’s mission to accelerate the success of early-stage life science companies. Since joining B+labs in 2021, in addition to being a primary participant of the startup of the life science incubator, Bob has been instrumental in building a safe, efficient, and fully compliant operational environment that enables scientists and entrepreneurs to focus on innovation and successful outcomes.Drawing on over 36 years of experience in facility design, commissioning, operations, environmental health and safety (EHS), sustainability, and regulatory/quality compliance, Bob develops and oversees operational systems that keep B+labs’ shared laboratory and office spaces running seamlessly. His expertise ensures that startups have access to fully functional, BSL-2 compliant laboratories, well-maintained equipment, and robust safety programs—critical foundations for breakthrough research in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.Before B+labs, Bob held leadership positions in academia, private industry and public institutions, including Takeda, Sun Pharma, Axalta, Airborne Systems, Frontida BioPharm, URL Pharma, The Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as service in the U.S. Air Force as a Bioenvironmental Engineer. Across these roles, he has consistently championed operational excellence, risk management, and sustainability. His work at B+labs reflects his commitment to creating a safe, sustainable, and high-performance environment where life science ventures can thrive and deliver transformative health solutions.
Bob holds a Master of Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania with an emphasis in Policy and Risk Management and a Bachelor of Science in. Environmental Engineering from Temple University, along with specialized training from the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine.

Niccolò Santi is the CEO of OROJIN. An Italian, born in Brazil and raised in Hong Kong, Niccolò has a diverse and international background. After completing his university education in the United Kingdom and China, he joined the multi-national conglomerate Swire and John Swire & Sons Management Programme, where he held various roles in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. Niccolò later co-founded SV International, which has become an industry leader in luxury hotel supply, completing over 450 projects. He brings to OROJIN a wealth of management experience and entrepreneurial drive.

Prof. Hao Shen is the President and CEO of Biosyngen Pte Ltd, a Singapore based biotech focused on developing cutting edge immune cell therapies for cancer patients. Before joining Biosyngen, Professor Shen was the Chief Scientific Officer of FosunKite, the Director of the Shanghai Institute of Immunology, and Professor at University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine for over 20 yrs. Professor Shen has received numerous awards for his work cross academics and industry. His research focuses on T cell immunology and has contributed significantly to the advancements of immune therapies and vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases.

Xinmei Shen is a reporter with the South China Morning Post’s technology desk covering topics including AI, digital assets and biotech. Previously she produced multimedia stories at the Post’s technology news platform Abacus and was a graduate of the University of Hong Kong.