Dr. Ana Pejović-Milić is a Chair and Professor at Department of Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Science, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. Dr. Pejović-Milić is among an elite group of researchers who are conducting studies in the new and growing field of medical and health physics, in the North American center of BioMedical research in Toronto, Canada. These disciplines rest on the application and use of physics in medicine, and Dr. Pejović-Milić work has practical implications for understanding diseases such as bone degeneration and eye health, as well as nanoparticle enhanced cancer therapies. Dr. Pejović-Milić’ s research group is currently developing in vivo X-ray fluorescence (XRF) based diagnostic techniques that will be used to assess the health consequences of strontium, lanthanum, tungsten and gadolinium, to mention some, accumulated in human bone. Her research team is actively developing a Total Reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) based approach to quantification of nanoparticles, such as gold and silver nano-particles, to aid future cancer therapies. Novel work on using TXRF to quantify trace elements is human tissues, such as in the nasolacrimal duct tissue, to evaluate eye health are also part of her research interests. Dr. Pejović-Milić is a Chair (Head) of the Department of Physics at Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada) since 2010. Along with her administrative duties, she a prolific researcher, with over 65 peer review publications and 200 conference presentations. Her research team includes postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students, all working on the use of techniques based in atomic and nuclear physics for non-destructive (in vivo) and destructive (ex vivo) elemental analysis of human tissues.

Professor Jelena M. Janjic holds a pharmacy degree from Belgrade University, Serbia, and a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry/Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. She completed post-doctoral training at Scripps Florida in drug discovery and Carnegie Mellon University in imaging nanotechnology. She is full time faculty at Duquesne University Pharmacy School since 2009. Dr. Janjic is the Founder and has served as a Co-Director of Chronic Pain Research Consortium at Duquesne University, since May 2011. CPRC. She also serves as the ORISE Faculty fellow and a Principal Scientist with the 59th Medical Wing USA Air Force, USAISR. She pioneered nanotechnology development for chronic pain and her work is supported by NIH and USA Air Force. The theranostic pain nanomedicine she designed is able to simultaneously image and modulate immune cells for therapeutic intervention in a number of inflammatory diseases including chronic pain. Her work on pain nanomedicine drew international and national attention. She won the Pittsburgh Business Times Innovator Award and was inducted into Duquesne University Research Hall of Fame in 2018. For the past 10 years, her focus was nanotechnology for imaging and drug delivery with two patents, more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and invited presentations at national and international meetings.