Prof. Dr. Chan Kok Gan is a distinguished microbiologist and interdisciplinary scholar whose work bridges molecular biology, genomics, microbial communication, and biosafety law. He is currently a Professor at University of Malaya, where he leads research in microbial genomics, quorum sensing, quorum quenching, genome biology, next-generation sequencing, biosafety laws and intellectual property law in biotechnology. His contributions span genomics, microbial communication, and conceptual innovation rather than single isolated discoveries.  Prof. Chan holds double Bachelor and Master degrees in Microbiology and laws, and PhD in Molecular Microbiology, with a rare combination of science and law. Prof. Chan is prolific researcher,  with >485 WoS WoS publications in high-impact journals including Nature, Nature Communications. His work has garnered tens of thousands of citations (e.g., his Google Scholar profile shows >27,200 citations, h index 83). He received fundings gloablly, eg. Malaysia Toray Science Foundation research grant, >15 French Fellowships, Hubert Curien Partnership-Hibiscus, SEAOHUN Award, UK Prime Minister’s Initiative II grant, 3 China Governments grants, JSPS Award and many Malaysia fundings.  Prof. Chan has received numerous research awards and recognitions, including a consistent ranking in Research.com’s listings of Top Microbiologist and and Leader in Biology/biochemistry in Malaysia; Malaysia Toray Science Foundation (MTSF) Science and Technology Award, JSPS Award. He was listed as the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University/Scopus in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 in both categories of “Current Year” and “Career”. He is even listed as World’s Top 0.1% Scientist by ScholarGPS.com, and ranked First in the categories of “quorum quenching”, “genomes” , “multidrug resistant pathogens” by Google Scholar. Prof. Chan made several first discoveries in Malaysia and globally, including (i) introducing the concept of, and coining, bacterial “signalling confusion”; (ii) coexistence of quorum sensing and quorum quenching in some bacteria, and (iii) quorum quenching molecules from Malay, Chinese and Indian medicinal herbs and secured several patents,  (iv) characterising novel quorum sensing and quenching genes, (v) novel bacterial genus and species, (vi) he published Malaysia’s first complete bacterial genome 13 years ago when next-generation sequencing was still globally scarce. Prof. Chan is elected Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (FASc) in 2017, and fellowships in other international learned academies. A novel bacterial species of a novel genus was named in honoured of Prof Chan’s contribution in microbiology:  Chania multitudinisentens gen. nov., sp. nov. Prof. Chan is world’s leading expert in bacterial quorum sensing, quorum quenching, genome biology, biosafety laws and whole genome sequencing. After publishing the first bacterial complete genome in 2013, Prof Chan then pioneered into multi-OMICs technology, providing a new dimension of research in microbiology and genome biology. To date, Prof. Chan is the leading expert in NGS, multi-OMICs (genome, plasmidome, resistome, virome, oncogenome, transcriptome, methylome, microbiome, metagenome, lipidome, metabolome).

  NOR ANIZA ABDULLAH is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FCSIT), University of Malaya, Malaysia. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Malaya (UM), obtained a Master’s degree in Interactive Multimedia from Westminster University, London, and earned her PhD in Computer Science from Southampton University, United Kingdom, in 2006. She served as Deputy Dean of the Equitable Society Research Cluster, UM (2016-2018), Deputy Dean of Undergraduate at the Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology (FCSIT), UM (2011-2013), and Head of the Multimedia Unit at FCSIT (1999-2003, 2007-2011). In 2002, she was Lead Internal Auditor for the Faculty of Engineering during UM’s first MS ISO 9001:2000 internal audit. She was Quality Manager for FCSIT (2012-2013) and chaired the UM Student Council Selection Audit Committee in 2012. Between 2012 and 2013, she led a committee to study and enhance the quality of programming courses at the faculty. She received the UM Excellence Service Awards in 2001 and 2013. Her research interests include personalized e-learning, recommender systems, medical image processing, intelligent multimedia, deep learning, sentiment analysis, mobile crowdsourcing, and augmented reality. She has authored or co-authored 80 publications in the Web of Science (WOS - h index 15) and Scopus (h index 21).  Kindly visit the following links for further details on her publications: Orcid: 0000-0001-6218-8772, ResearcherID: B-2768-2010; Scopus Author ID: 26659416000    

Nofouz Mafarja (Ph.D.) is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya. Her research focuses on physics education, scaffolding in education, collaborative learning (Reciprocal teaching strategy), word problem solving in physics, critical thinking skills, STEM Education, academic self-concept, attitude learning physics, reading comprehension in science, and Research Methodology. She is presently involved in several research projects on industrial revolution 4.0, teaching innovation, learning support, virtual reality, Hybrid Learning System PjBL Model, society 5.0, critical thinking skill, Generative AI tools and teaching practices. she had experience on teaching sciences, curriculum development, educational technology, tutoring, educational leadership, science and teacher training.