Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) as an anti-aging health product – Promises and safety concerns

Harshani Nadeeshani received her B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Food and M.Phil. degree in Science and Technology from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. She works as a graduate research assistant at the National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS), Sri Lanka. She is a PhD candidate at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. Her research interests include nutritional biochemistry, functional and nutritional properties of food and nutritional status and malnutrition of Sri Lankan children. She has received “The Best Oral Presentation” awards in three conferences which held in Sri Lanka on food and nutrition.

Professor Jinyao Li is the Dean of Life Sciences, Xinjiang University. The aims of his research are (1) to develop therapeutic cancer vaccines, especially dendritic cell-based vaccine against cervical cancer; (2) to develop vaccines against autoimmune diseases; (3) to search for compounds from natural products for the treatment of cancer, obesity and diabetes. His technical expertise including flow cytometry, small animal experimentation, in vitro tissue experimentation, molecular biology technology and cell line experimentation.

Dr. Tianlei Ying joined the School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University in 2014 as Professor and Chief of the Antibody Engineering and Drug Discovery Laboratory. In the past 5 years, he has published over 50 papers and co-authored over 10 patents and patent applications. Currently, he is involved in the development of novel antibody fragments of small size and long half-lives. He also identified panels of highly potent fully human mAbs against cancer and infectious diseases. Some of these mAbs are expected to move into the clinic shortly.

Baohong Zhang holds a Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Ocean University of China. She had a post-doctoral position in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Then she works in SJTU over 16 years. She is currently an Assocciate Professor working mainly on biopharmaceuticals in Engineering Research Center of Cell and Therapeutic Antibody, Ministry of Education, School of Pharmacy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Professor Jun Lu obtained his BSc from East China Normal University and MSc and PhD from the University of Auckland. He established Biomedical Science teaching programme and research laboratory at AUT. His research interest is mainly in nutraceutical products and metabolic disease. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has been working on New Zealand seafood products (including mussel, seaweed, paua, fish and clams) to extract bioactive compounds for more than ten years. He is the principal investigator of HVN-funded project mussel-fucoidan as supplemented superfood for the prevention of type 2 diabetes and alleviation of joint pain.