His most significant work concerns the mechanism of action of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, the anti-inflammatory glucocorticoid steroids and (later) the cromone anti-allergic drugs. He discovered that glucocorticoids produce their anti-inflammatory effects partly by releasing a protein ‘Annexin-A1’ from target cells, a mechanism also shared by the anti-allergic cromones. Flower was a Principal Fellow of the Wellcome Trust from 1994-2007 and was elected to fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999) and the Royal Society (2003). He was president of the British Pharmacological Society (2000-2003) has published over 350 papers and books. He has been awarded several national and international awards for his research including the Wellcome Gold Medal of the BPS and a ‘Life Time Achievement Award’ of the International Association of Inflammation Societies (2005).

Dr Bian is the deputy director of Drug Development Unit of National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Research Director of Department of Pharmacologoy, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS. Dr Bian is an Associate Editor, lead guest editor and reviewing editor of 13 international journals, including Antioxidant Redox Signalling, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Frontiers in Pharmacology. He has served as a panel member of the Singapore National Medical Research Council (since 2007) and is also a consultant Member of the Greece Society of Studying Cardiovascular Diseases (SOS-CVD) (since 2010). He serves as an advisory committee member of different societies or conferences, including the International and European Conferences on the Biology of Hydrogen Sulphide, and the Asian Society for Vascular Biology (ASVB). Dr Bian has, since 2014, served as a non-executive independent director of Biosensors International Group which develops and manufactures innovative medical devices for interventional cardiology. His main research interests include 1. Biology of endogenous mediators (e.g. hydrogen sulfide); 2. Novel functions of Na+/K+ ATPase.

He has published over 110 papers in international journals including Cir Res, PNAS, ARS, JASN, and has delivered over 70 lectures at the invitation of international and regional scientific societies, institutes and conference organizers.

Translating his passion in neurology to community-transforming actions, Gilles co-founded The Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Centre as well as the MND Biobank at the Macquarie University. During this scientific meeting, Gilles will be taking us on a journey of understanding the role of tryptophan metabolism in inflammation which determines the progression of pathogenesis in neurological disorders.

He has been a very active member of the International Parkinson & Movement Disorder Society (MDS), and currently serves as Secretary of the MDS Asian-Oceanian section; and as a member of the MDS Task Force for Evidence-Based Medicine, and MDS Task Force for Palliative Care in Movement Disorders.