Sreekanth Thota is a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Technological Development in Health, Funda????o Oswaldo Cruz - Fiocruz in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He studied Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Kakatiya University (India) and Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (Bangalore, India) and obtained his PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (India) in 2011. He then did postdoctoral work at Colorado State University, USA. He receivedthe CAPES-Fiocruz Visiting Researcher award in 2013. He has published over 40 articles in peer-reviewed journals. His research interest is focused on the drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, fundamental chemistry and biochemistry of ruthenium and other transition metal ions leading to applications in medicine.

Debbie C. Crans is Professor of Organic and Inorganic Chemistry and in the Cell and Molecular Biology Program at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University with George M. Whitesides, USA, in 1985. She did a postdoctoral fellowship with Orville L. Chapman and Paul D. Boyer at UCLA in 1986. Her research interests lie in biological chemistry with expertise in metals in medicine and coordination chemistry with a focus on transition metals such as vanadium and platinum and interests in membrane model systems and hydrophobic compounds and lipids such as menaquinone. She received the Vanadis Award in 2004 and in the 2015 Cope Scholar Award. She has published over 190 articles in peer-reviewed journals.