Professor Azlan Shah Ali, PhD FRISM FRICS FCABE Reg BS   Prof. Azlan Shah Ali is a highly accomplished academic and practitioner specializing in building surveying and construction management. Currently, he holds the prestigious position of Professor in the Department of Building Surveying and serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment at Universiti Malaya (UM) in Kuala Lumpur. His academic journey at UM began in 2004, and his dedication and expertise led to his promotion to the rank of full professor in July 2013, making him one of the youngest professors at the university. In addition to his role at UM, Prof. Azlan is a Visiting Professor at the School of Built Environment at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, contributing his extensive knowledge and experience to the global academic community. Throughout his career, he has held various leadership positions within UM's academic administration, including Dean, Acting Dean, Deputy Dean, and Head of the Department of the Faculty of Built Environment. Before entering academia, he gained valuable industry experience in the building sector, starting in 1998. In 2020, Prof. Azlan was appointed as the Director for Building Surveying at Unit Perundingan Universiti Malaya Sdn Bhd (UPUM Sdn Bhd), UM's consultancy arm. Under his leadership, UPUM Sdn Bhd secured ten significant Building Condition Assessment (BCA) consultation projects from the Malaysian government, totalling over RM6 million, highlighting his expertise in building condition assessment. He earned his PhD from Universiti Teknologi MARA, specializing in building refurbishment, with a research focus on building maintenance and refurbishment management strategies. Prof. Azlan has a substantial track record, with involvement in numerous academic research and consultancy projects, securing more than RM6 million in funding. Noteworthy collaborations include software development projects with Spanish companies CYPE, totalling over RM2.5 million. He has a prolific publication record, with over 200 peer-reviewed technical contributions in journals, proceedings, and books. Prof. Azlan's outstanding contributions to education and research have been recognized with awards such as the University of Malaya's Best Lecturers Award in 2012 and the Excellence Service Award from UM, received three times for his significant contributions to teaching and research. He also boasts an impressive array of professional credentials and holds esteemed titles such as Fellow of The Royal Institution of Surveyors Malaysia (FRISM), Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, UK (FRICS) and Fellow of The Chartered Association of Building Engineers, UK (FCABE). His commitment to the profession is further demonstrated by his 15-year tenure as a committee member, including the role of secretary, for the Building Surveying Division of the Royal Institution of Surveyors Malaysia (RISM). Prof. Azlan Shah Ali's multifaceted career reflects his unwavering dedication to the field of building surveying and construction management, where he continues to inspire and lead in both academia and industry.

Dr Chan is Professor of Medicine, Director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and Senior Consultant Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist at the University of Malaya, the University of Malaya Medical Centre and the University of Malaya Specialist Centre. He graduated with distinction from the University of Malaya in 2005 and obtained the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom in 2008. He served at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital at the beginning of his career and subsequently returned to his alma mater in 2010 where he completed his fellowship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology and actively contributed to clinical, research and educational work. He served as an Executive Committee Member for the Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (MSGH) between 2015 and 2021. He was the Scientific Co-Chair and a core member of the Organizing Committee for the Asian Pacific Digestive Week (APDW) 2021. He is a member of the Academy of Medicine Malaysia, the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL), the European Association for the Study of the Liver, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and the Hepatology Committee of the World Gastroenterology Organization. He is a member of the Global NASH Council, the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of Liver MAFLD Consortium, the Gut and Obesity in Asia Workgroup, and the CAP Prognosis Study Group. He completed two terms as Associate Editor for the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology between 2018 and 2023, and is a current member of the Editorial Board for Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Clinical and Molecular Hepatology. He is a regular reviewer for multiple international journals. He has published numerous full papers in peer-reviewed journals and presented in both local and international conferences, including the Annual Scientific Meeting of the MSGH, the Singapore Hepatology Conference, the International Digestive Disease Forum, the Annual Meeting of the APASL, and the APDW. His main area of research interest is metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. As part of his PhD dissertation, he described the two-step approach in non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which has now become the foundation for a simple assessment and referral pathway for the disease in national and international guidelines. He served with distinction as a Clinical Research Fellow in Hepatology at the Storr Liver Centre. He contributed to the section on NAFLD in the 6th Edition of the Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus for Malaysia and was the lead author for the MSGH Consensus Statements on metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). He is actively involved in NASH clinical trials and is in the Global Expert Panel for the ESSENCE study. Besides being an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal and liver diseases, he is passionate about diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic procedures, including endoscopic ultrasonography and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. He is involved in the training of fellows in Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and Advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy, and teaches undergraduate and postgraduate medical students. He contributed to two chapters in the core undergraduate reference book for clinical examination, Talley & O’Connor’s Clinical Examination 9th edition, Southeast Asia Edition. He is a member of the Department of Medicine Higher Education Committee and is a regular reviewer for postgraduate research and grant proposals.

Dr. Song Sze Looi is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), Universiti Malaya, specialising in Phylogenomics and eDNA Metagenomics. She obtained her PhD in the field of Algal Biotechnology in 2013. Following her doctorate, she was appointed as a Postdoctoral Researcher on a high-impact research project in Molecular Phylogenetics and Systematics. In 2016, she took on the role of Research Fellow, focusing on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Bioinformatics. In 2019, Dr. Song joined the China-ASEAN College of Marine Sciences (CAMS) at Xiamen University Malaysia as an Assistant Professor. She returned to Universiti Malaya in 2021 and currently serves as the Program Coordinator for the Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) and the Program Director for Future Studies. Dr. Song’s research integrates high-throughput sequencing technologies and advanced analytical tools to explore the evolutionary relationships and biodiversity of a wide range of organisms, including both marine and terrestrial taxa. Her projects examined the phylogenetic and phylogeographic structures of biota of economic, agriculture and public health importance, such as seaweeds, parasites, insects, and vertebrates, as well as microbial communities associated with host organisms and environmental samples. She has published over 60 WoS–indexed journal articles. In addition, she has led or contributed to numerous research projects funded by national, international, and industry bodies, including the Japan Toray Science Foundation, the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS), the National Conservation Trust Fund (NCTF), and a Petronas-funded project in collaboration with UCSI University. Her recent work focuses on the application of eDNA for assessing marine biodiversity and ecosystem health, particularly in sensitive estuarine and coastal habitats. Her research excellence has been recognized (1) through multiple awards, including being a co-recipient of the Malaysia Toray Science Foundation 2023 Science and Technology Award, and (2) as a lead speaker at conferences.