Hesham Al-Mekhlafi has a PhD in public health (2008), master’s degrees in medical science (parasitology) (2004) and in applied statistics (2012) as well as a bachelor’s degree in medical laboratories (1997). Since early 2000s, he has been actively engaged in research on the molecular epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases including malaria, neglected tropical diseases, NTDs (such as soil-transmitted helminthiasis, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis and dengue fever), and waterborne parasites. He joined the department of parasitology, University of Malaya (a regional leading dept. in parasitology research) for seven years (2009–2016) as a senior lecturer and promoted to associate professor. In 2016, he joined Jazan University, Saudi Arabia and promoted to full professor in 2022. He re-joined Universiti Malaya in 2023. He has taught several courses in parasitology, epidemiology, biostatistics, and research methodology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has established passionate research teams that involved diligent postgraduate students, enthusiastic colleagues, and inspiring national and international collaborators. The research dedicated to helping vulnerable rural and aboriginal communities in Malaysia and other countries including Yemen, Nigeria and Libya against the NTDs, malaria and other infectious diseases. He has published more than 150 articles in high-impact ISI & Scopus indexed journals; with h-index of 41 (WoS). Hesham has been a member of several academic, scientific and administrative councils and committees. He also enjoys reviewing scientific manuscripts, research proposals, plans and strategies, theses and reports, etc. He is a member of the editorial boards of several renowned journals, and a regular reviewer for many peer-reviewed journals as well as a panel member of assessors for various national and international research grant schemes and postgraduate programs.

Dr. Azwatee Abdul Aziz is currently an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Restorative Dentistry at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya. She holds a Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) from the University of Adelaide, Australia (1999), a Master of Clinical Dentistry in Prosthodontics from the Eastman Dental Institute, University College London (2004), and a PhD from the University of Malaya (2019). Her academic responsibilities include coordination of the Integrated Cariology Module and Operative Dentistry teaching for fourth- and fifth-year undergraduate students. She plays an active role in curriculum development, clinical training, and academic mentoring at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Dr. Azwatee also serves as the Chairperson for the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) at the University of Malaya and is currently serves as an examiner for the Restorative Specialty Membership Examinations conducted by the Royal College of Surgeons of England." In recognition of her contributions to dental education and training, she was elected as a Member of the Faculty of Dental Trainers, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Her research interests lie in the areas of dental education, dental erosion, restorative dental materials, and the application of optical coherence tomography in dentistry. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and has supervised numerous undergraduate and postgraduate research projects. Dr. Azwatee is an active member of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) and a lifetime member of the Malaysian Association for Prosthodontics (MAP).

Wenn-Chyau Lee received his BSc (Hons) degree in Biomedical Sciences from Universiti Malaya, Malaysia in 2011, and graduated with his PhD in Medical Sciences from Universiti Malaya in 2014. Subsequently, he joined Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN, A*STAR) as a research fellow. He was appointed as SIgN fellow (young investigator) in 2018. He joined A*STAR ID Labs as an investigator in 2021. Subsequently, he joined the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya as a senior lecturer. Currently, he is also an adjunct investigator of A*STAR ID Labs, Singapore. As a parasitologist, he has involved in studies encompassing several medically important parasites. His main research interest revolves around the immuno-pathobiology of malaria. He has been investigating and deciphering the roles of rosetting (a phenomenon where a Plasmodium-infected red blood cell is stably adhered to uninfected red blood cells, forming a flower-like structure called ‘rosette’) in the pathogenesis of malaria. Besides, he is exploring the potential of applying different biocontrol strategies to eliminate vector-borne diseases. He has worked as a research fieldworker in different places including the Thai-Burmese Border, China, peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. As different laboratory settings are equipped differently, he enjoys adapting and improvising facilities available in the field sites to conduct experiments, as well as coordinating the insectarium and Arthropod Containment Level 2(ACL2) facility in the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. To date, he has published (as first/ corresponding author) in reputable journals such as Blood, Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, eLife, EBioMedicine, Entomologia Generalis, and Trends in Parasitology. Apart from reviewing manuscripts for various journals, as well as evaluating grant proposals for local and overseas funders, he is also an associate editor of Frontiers in Microbiology and one of the editorial board members for the journal Decoding Infection and Transmission.  He has involved in various teaching activities for students from different programs in Universiti Malaya, such as the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Bachelor of Biomedical Science, Master of Pathology (MPATH), and Master of Medical Parasitology and Entomology, as well as the students from overseas institutes, such as the Master of Science Program in Public Health, Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Thailand. Besides participating as the coordinator for courses and several projects in the department, he is also the instructor of the microscopy training for the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) co-organized by the University of Glasgow and Universiti Malaya. He served as a moderator in "Implementation Research (WPR-facilitated)", a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) by RTC-TDR-WHO in 2025. He has been a member of the Research Management Unit (RMU), Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya since 2022. He is also a member of the A*STAR Global Network (A*GN), Singapore, the Malaysian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (MSBMB), and the Malaysian Society of Parasitology and Tropical Medicine (MSPTM).