Thobile Lorraine Malinga (née Shabalala) has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare sector and more than 20 years of experience in clinical research and clinical trials. She holds a Bachelor of Nursing, a Master of Nursing in Health Service Management (HIV Management), a Master of Philosophy in Cancer Science, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Ethnobotany at the University of Fort Hare. Her academic training includes qualitative and quantitative research methods, biostatistics, and certifications in Good Clinical Practice, Good Participatory Practice, Elementary Critical Care, and Best Practices in HIV/AIDS Care and Support.

Throughout her career, Thobile has served in several research and healthcare roles, including Research Nurse at the Aurum Institute, Senior Research Nurse at the Desmond Tutu TB Centre, Senior Scientist at Cochrane South Africa, and currently Scientist at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). Her expertise includes clinical trial governance, systematic and rapid reviews, evidence synthesis, health policy development, technical report writing, protocol development, and peer-reviewed scientific publications. She has authored and co-authored numerous research articles and conference presentations, contributed to WHO Africa health policy initiatives, and completed the MAC AIDS Fund Leadership Initiative. Her research interests focus on community health, public health, vaccine research, HIV/AIDS, cancer prevention, clinical trials, and evidence-based healthcare. Her career objective is to continuously enhance healthcare productivity through research, healthcare support, and management while advancing community health-based research programs.

Dr. Jiarui Fan is a lecturer at the Economic Management School, Xi'an University and a researcher specializing in public management, complex networks, and health-related behavioral modeling. Holding a Ph.D. in Management from Xi'an Jiaotong University, Dr. Fan’s interdisciplinary research employs advanced computational frameworks—including Agent-Based Modeling and deep reinforcement learning architectures—to analyze dynamic social structures and collective action. This methodological innovation has driven significant contributions to epidemiological modeling, notably assessing the efficacy of targeted health interventions and resource-constrained medical facilities (such as Fangcang shelter hospitals) during public health emergencies. Furthermore, Dr. Fan conducts extensive field research on grassroots governance and rural revitalization, generating vital insights into the social determinants of health, livelihood sustainability, and health equity among marginalized transitioning populations. By bridging computational simulation with public administration theory, Dr. Fan aims to advance data-driven innovations in global healthcare policy.

Muhammad Asif, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Eco-Health, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, China. He is a molecular parasitologist and biotechnologist with expertise in tick-borne diseases, zoonotic pathogens, molecular epidemiology, One Health surveillance, host-vector-pathogen interactions, and disease prediction. He received his PhD in Biotechnology from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan, where his doctoral research focused on the molecular detection of blood-borne pathogens in cattle from South Punjab.

Dr. Asif’s research integrates field surveillance, molecular diagnostics, sequencing, phylogenetic analysis, bioinformatics, and epidemiological data interpretation to understand the distribution and transmission of vector-borne and zoonotic pathogens. His technical expertise includes DNA/RNA extraction, PCR, RT-PCR, qPCR-related workflows, ELISA, NGS sample preparation, WES/WGS data interpretation, sequence analysis, mutation analysis, phylogenetics, and GenBank submissions. He is also experienced in R, Python, MEGA, BioEdit, SnapGene, EndNote, and molecular epidemiology data handling.

His research portfolio includes studies on Anaplasma, Theileria, Babesia, Rickettsia, Brucella, Toxoplasma, and tick species of veterinary and public health importance. He has published first-author and co-authored research articles in peer-reviewed journals, contributed book chapters, and submitted more than 300 sequences to GenBank. His current postdoctoral work focuses on tick-borne diseases, zoonotic pathogen surveillance, molecular detection, sequence interpretation, disease prediction, and international collaborative research.

Before joining Shandong University, Dr. Asif served as an Assistant Professor and Lecturer in Biology in Pakistan, where he taught life sciences and trained students in laboratory and research methods. His long-term research goal is to develop integrated One Health-based surveillance, diagnostic, and prediction platforms for emerging vector-borne and zoonotic diseases.