Dilfuza Egamberdieva

Dr. Dilfuza Egamberdieva is the head of the Biological Research and Food Safety Lab, Institute of Fundamental and Applied Research, National Research University (TIAME). She received her PhD in agricultural sciences from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. She pioneered research on the soil and plant microbiome. She conducted her postdoctoral studies at the Helsinki University of Finland, University of Florence, Italy, at the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, and as well as Leiden University of Netherlands. She continued her research activities at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research and Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her remarkable contributions to science in the field of microbiology received SCOPUS-2019 Regional Award. “Top Scientist of the Year”, TWAS (The World Academy of Science) Award in Agricultural Sciences (2013). TWAS-TWOWS-SCOPUS Young Women Research Award (2009), L'OREAL-UNESCO Fellowship for Women in Science (2006), American Society of Microbiology, (ASM) Morrison Rogosa Award (2006), UNESCO-Man and Biosphere (MAB) Award (2005). On the national level she has played a leading role in the implementation and evaluation the national programs and projects in microbiological and biotechnological research for sustainable development. She act as a chair of the Executive Committee of the OWSD Central Asia National Chapter, and vice-chair and national focal point representative to the UNESCO-STEPAN (Science and Technology Policy Asian Network). Dilfuza is also involved in science policy, and served on the advisory committee of the German Council of Science and Humanities (WR), and member of The High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), The Committee on World Food Security, and also acts as the Country Ambassador for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). She is a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA), the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and Islamic World Academy of Sciences (IAS). She is co-editor of the Environmental Sustainability Journal (Springer), and serves on the editorial board of several professional journals including BMC Microbiology, Frontiers in Microbiology, and Plants (MDPI). She authored/co-authored over 200 research articles and edited 6 book published by Springer and Elsevier.

Catarina Magalhães

PhD in Marine Sciences, researcher of CIIMAR, professor at University of Porto and member of the coordination committee of Portuguese Polar Program. Her research cover the study of fundamental biogeochemical cycles (e.g Nitrogen) and microbial communities in extreme polar regions (Arctic and Antarctica), deep sea environments, temperate coastal waters, estuarine ecosystems and open ocean environments, with a broader perspective on how microbiomes respond to global changes. Our studies are multidimensional involving oceanographic campaigns, as well as in situ experiments, microcosms and bioreactors experimentation using biogeochemical measurements, microbiome sample processing and genomics / metagenomics / metatranscriptomics work flow analysis. She have an active participation in national, and international marine microbiome monitoring programs by generating long-term genomic data sets, with an active involvement in international microbiome consortia and metagenomics standardized initiatives.

Ana Teresa Gonçalves

Ana Gonçalves is a Marine Biologist with a Master of Science in Marine Science and a PhD in Applied Marine Bioscience with a specialization in Fish Health Management from the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology in Japan. Working for the past 15 years with functional nutrition in aquaculture she has been focused on improving fish intestinal performance via modulation of the microbiome-host crosstalk. In 2013, Ana moved to Chile to work as a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Aquaculture Research to focus on applying nutrigenomics to assess gut performance when using functional ingredients. There, Ana was a principal investigator (PI) in projects related to the role of the microbiome in the coding/non-coding transcriptome in the gut, reflecting in fish performance against insults. Since 2020, Ana has been working with GreenCoLab, focusing on unraveling the potential of algae as a functional ingredient and algaebiotic agent for aquaculture. At SPAROS, an R&D driven company dedicated to nutrition in aquaculture, Ana coordinates the development of new functional feeds for hatchery feeds and early juveniles, bridging with the GreenCoLab's team to support activities and strategic research performance to assess and optimize algae-derived ingredients for aquafeeds.

Ana Margarida Almeida

Dr. Ana Santos Almeida is a leading cancer immunologist and expert in human microbiome research. She earned her Ph.D. in Health Sciences at Institut Pasteur, Paris, in 2012, and conducted her postdoctoral research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York. In 2016, she joined Prof. Paul O’Toole's lab at APC Microbiome Ireland, Cork, where she received multiple awards, including a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. Dr. Almeida's work has significantly advanced our understanding of how the human gut microbiota influences tumour development. From 2021 to 2022, she directed the R&D team at Tiny Health, a microbiome-focused AI startup. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of the Microbiome in Health and Disease Translational Lab at iMM-Care in Portugal. Her research focuses on harnessing the microbiome to develop innovative biotherapeutics for cancer and identifying gut microbiome biomarkers for early colorectal cancer diagnosis through precision profiling and machine learning.

Benedita Sampaio Maia

Benedita Sampaio Maia is a Microbiologist graduated at School of Biotechnology of the Portuguese Catholic University and has a PhD in Human Biology from the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto. Currently is an Assistant Professor at the Dentistry Faculty and chair of the Microbiology biannual courses in the Dentistry Master’s degree, while also taking part in PhD programs from UP. Currently is a senior researcher focused on exploring the role of the human microbiome in health and disease at the Nephrology & Infectious Diseases R&D of I3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, University of Porto.

Carolina Jiang Zheng

Carolina is a Product Marketing Manager at Novogene. Her main role is helping define strategies to improve Novogene services and communicate the service new features and benefits to the users. Carolina holds an MSc degree in Computational Biology and has used her product knowledge to promote a positive customer experience over the years.

Cláudia Marques

Licenciada em Ciências da Nutrição pela Faculdade de Ciências da Nutrição e da Alimentação da Universidade do Porto;Doutorada em Biomedicina pela Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto; Professora Auxiliar na NOVA Medical School - Regente da UC Nutrição Humana e da UC Metodologias de Investigação da LCN; Investigadora integrada do grupo ProNutri do CINTESIS cujos interesses de investigação passam pelo papel da alimentação na modulação da microbiota intestinal e pelo transplante de microbiota para o tratamento de patologias como a obesidade e a diabetes; Co-fundadora da YourBiome Therapeutics - uma spin-off da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa que pretende garantir o acesso seguro e efetivo ao tratamento de patologias por transplante de microbiota fecal

Conceição Egas

Researcher at Biocant, Transfer Technology Association, Cantanhede, who leads Genoinseq - the next-generation sequencing (NGS) core facility. She is also head of the Microbiomes, Metabolism and Omics research group at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra. Conceição Egas has extensive expertise in genomics, transcriptomics, and microbiomics. Current research interests include the study of microbes and microbiomes in environmental ecosystems,microbial-host interactions, and metagenome functional characterization focused on potential biotechnology applications.

Filipa Horta

Holds a Bachelor's degree in Nutritional Science awarded by the University of Porto, and an MBA from ISCTE. Marketing Director at Biocodex. Has 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, the last 7 of which in the fields of Microbiota and Probiotics.

Florbela Soares

Florbela Soares graduated in Marine Biology (Algarve University) and completed the PhD in Marine Sciences (Aquaculture) in 1996 by Algarve University. Is a Senior Researcher at Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera since 2009. In the aquaculture area, she has 30 years of experience in marine fish pathology, reproduction, larval development and marine fish production in different culture systems. Currently, she coordinates all scientific activity related to marine fish pathologies at Olhão Aquaculture Research Station - EPPO and S2aquaColab.

Francisco X. Nascimento

Francisco X. Nascimento, Ph.D. is an applied microbiology enthusiast and a versatile and motivated researcher that tackles several aspects of microbial ecology and biotechnology. His work focuses on several scientific areas, such as applied microbiology, bioprocesses, eukaryote-microbe interactions, evolutionary biology, and bioinformatics/omics analysis. Francisco is currently affiliated with Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Biotecnológica (IBET), and is involved in the study of plant and microalgae microbiomes and their applications.

Ivone Vaz-Moreira

Ivone Vaz-Moreira is a researcher at CBQF (Portuguese Catholic University) and assistant professor by invitation. She graduated in Biochemistry at the University of Coimbra and completed her Ph.D. in Biotechnology with specialization in Microbiology at the Biotechnology College of the Portuguese Catholic University in 2012. Her research focuses on Environmental Microbiology related to aquatic habitats and their intersections with soil/sediments, plants, animals, and finally humans; including the study of the urban water cycle microbiomes and the potential of antibiotic resistance dissemination from aquatic environments.

Luís Teixeira

Luís Teixeira is an Associate Professor at the new Católica Biomedical Research Centre, Medical School, Universidade Católica de Lisboa, and a Principal investigator at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência since 2009. He did his PhD at EMBL and postdoc at University of Cambridge. His research group focuses on host-microbe interactions using Drosophila melanogaster as a model system. They are interested in understanding these interactions from a functional, ecological, and evolutionary level. Luis is an EMBO member, has been an organizer of a bi-annual PhD Summer School on Host-Microbe Symbiosis since 2015, and is the coordinator of SymbNET, an European twinning network on Host-Microbe Symbiosis.

Mónica Guita Sebastiana

Mónica Sebastiana is a molecular biologist working at the Faculty of Sciences, Lisbon University. She has been focused on the study of mycorrhizas, a symbiotic plant-fungal interaction which is established between most terrestrial plants and beneficial fungi from the soil. Her research involves the use of transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics to understand the molecular mechanisms used by plants to response to their symbiotic fungal partners. She has been mainly working with woody plants, such as Cork Oak as a model plant, and using Pisolithus tinctorius as a mycorrhizal fungal model.

Nelson Lima

Nelson Lima is a Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences (Biotechnology) from UMinho (1993) and in 2004 he was appointed Full Professor at UMinho. His research is related to environmental (biodegradation/biodeterioration) and food mycology, including water biofilms studies, with the integration of polyphasic for fungal identification with long-term preservation. Since 1996 he has been the head of “Micoteca da Universidade do Minho” fungal culture collection and he was a member of the executive board of WFCC and a Collection Officer and past-President of ECCO. Currently, He is the PI of the EU Horizon 2020 IS_MIRRI21 project and is responsible to establish the headquarters at UMinho for MIRRI. He is a partner of the two new Horizon Europa ISIDORe and CanSERV projects and he is the national coordinator of the MIRRI National node (MIRRI-PT/Pt-mBRCN). He has been a partner of Portuguese, EU, and Brazilian research funding projects and an evaluator in several funding agencies. He supervised 24 Ph.D. and 30 M.Sc. theses. He has more than 400 publications (SCOPUS index-h 43), including papers, books, and book chapters, and more than 600 conferences and communications. He is an invited Professor at different Brazilian Universities, Universidade de La Frontera in Chile, and at Milan-Bicocca University in Italy. In 2016, he was granted the title “Professor Honoris Causa” by the University Federal of Pernambuco (Recife, Brazil). More recently, in recognition of his contribution to the mycology field, a new fungal species was named Penicillium limae.

Ricardo Ramiro

Ricardo Ramiro is a biologist turned data analyst, who has been leading the Data Management and Risk analysis department at InnovPlantProtect since 2021. Previously, he did a PhD at the University of Edinburgh and a post-doc at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência.

Vanessa Luís

Vanessa Zuzarte Luís is a molecular and cellular biologist with two decades of experience in biological research and scientific consulting. She has a PhD in embryology and a post-doc in parasitology. In 2020 Vanessa set up the IMM Molecular Diagnostic Center, dedicated to COVID testing. She moved from academia to industry in 2021 and currently heads of the Molecular Biology Laboratory of the SGS Global Biosciences Center, leading the development of tools to help solve environmental and industrial problems.