 | João Paulo Crespo Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal | Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Sciences and Technology - Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. Director of the Laboratory of Membrane Processes at iBET. Former Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation and former Coordinator of NOVA Doctoral School. Former Vice-President of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese National Science Foundation) and former Academic Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology at NOVA. Member of the editorial board of “Journal of Membrane Science”, “Journal of Biotechnology” and “Desalination and Water Treatment”. Member of “Academia de Engenharia”, Portugal, external member of the EPSRC, United Kingdom, former member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the “Institut Européen des Membranes, Montpellier, member of the Steering Committee of the “Pôle de Chimie Balard”, France, and external expert of the “Commission des Titres d'Ingénieur”, France. Editor of 2 books in the domains of Membrane Science and Engineering, and of Sustainable Separation Processes, author of 21 book chapters and 230 publications referred in the Web of Science. Founder of the spin-off company “Zeyton Nutraceuticals”. Research Keywords: Membrane materials and processes; Bioseparations; Valorisation of bioresources |
 | Laurent Poirel University of Fribourg Switzerland | Associate Professor at the Medical and Molecular Microbiology Unit, Dept of Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He is co-director of the Swiss National Reference Center on Emerging Resistance to Antibiotics. His research interests emerging mechanisms of resistance to ß-lactams, polymyxins, and quinolones in Gram-negative rods, either in human and veterinary medicine. He is specialized on the genetics of acquisition of resistance genes in Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii, plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance, and polymyxin resistance determinants in Enterobacteriaceae. He has co-invented a series of rapid diagnostic tests for detection of emerging resistance traits, including the Carba NP test. He is the author of 450 publications in international journals, and Associate Editor of two highly-ranked journals, i.e. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. |
 | Merja Penttilä VTT Technical Research Centre | Research professor in biotechnology at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and an adjunct professor in synthetic biology at Aalto University. Her expertise is in particular in engineering of yeasts and filamentous fungi for the production of fuels, chemicals, enzymes and materials. She has acted as the director of the Academy of Finland CoE in White biotechnology – Green chemistry, and is a partner in the CoE on Molecular engineering of biosynthetic hybrid materials, and coordinated a large national programme “Living Factories: Synthetic Biology for a sustainable Bioeconomy”. She has led many EU level and industrial projects and acted as an advisory board or committee member of a number of international organisations. |
 | Michael Gilmore Harvard Medical School, Harvard University USA | Currently the Sir William Osler Professor of Ophthalmology, and Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, he serves on the steering committees of the Harvard Microbial Sciences Initiative, and the Infectious Disease Initiative of the Broad Institute. As Principal Investigator of the Harvard-wide Program on Antibiotic Resistance, his research focuses on the evolution and development of multidrug resistant strains of enterococci, staphylococci, and streptococci, and the development of new therapeutic approaches. He is past chair of the NIH Antimicrobial Resistance Diagnostic Challenge and Bacterial Pathogenesis Study Sections, the Gordon Conference on Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction, ASM Division D, and the ARVO IM Section. Mike is founder of the international ASM Conference on Enterococci series, and the Boston Area Antibiotic Resistance Network. He started his academic career in 1984 at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and rose through the ranks to Vice President for Research. He also held the MG McCool professorship and was awarded the George Lynn Cross research chair. In 2004 he moved to Harvard Medical School as President and CEO of the Schepens Eye Research Institute, Marie and DeWalt Ankeny Director of Research and CL Schepens Professor of Ophthalmology. In 2010, he moved his laboratories to their current location on the Massachusetts General Hospital campus of Harvard Medical School, in the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He has published over 180 peer reviewed manuscripts in Cell, Nature, Science, PNAS and other leading journals. He continues to serve on numerous advisory boards and committees for public and private organizations, focused on drug discovery, antibiotic resistance, and bacterial pathogenesis. |
 | Per Nielsen | Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Bioscience at Aalborg University, Denmark where he is heading the multidisciplinary Center for Microbial Communities (www.cmc.bio.aau.). His research group has been active in environmental biotechnology for over 25 years, focusing on microbial ecology of biological wastewater treatment and bioenergy production, recovery of nutrients, biofilms, and aspects of medical microbiology. He has been among the pioneers in the development and implementation of the new DNA sequencing technologies in the water engineering field, and has developed MiDAS, an open online microbiology resource for everyone working in wastewater treatment and bioenergy production. He chaired the International Water Association (IWA) specialist group “Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering” for 8 years (2005-2013) and is chair of the IWA-ISME (International Society for Microbial Ecology) BioCluster, trying to coordinate activities in the two associations. He has received many awards for his work, latest a personal “Villum Investigator Award” that allows him to dive into the world of undescribed microbial diversity, the microbial dark matter, by novel methods. |
 | Sunil Chandran | Currently Senior Director in Research and Development at Amyris. He received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Mumbai, an MS in Organic Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Michigan State University. He worked previously as a Post-Doctoral Research Scholar in the Biochemistry department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as a Scientist in the Biology department at Kosan Biosciences. Primary interests lie in the field of metabolic engineering for the microbial production of chemicals with a wide range of applications. During his tenure at Amyris, Dr. Chandran led the development of the Automated Strain Engineering pipeline and currently oversees multiple research programs at Amyris focused on commercializing various molecules. He is also leading a research program at Amyris to reduce the cost and timeline required to commercialize any new biological target by developing efficient, high-throughput strain optimization pipelines that integrate custom software, robotics, molecular biology, next-generation strain testing platforms, big-data analytics, and machine learning algorithms. |
 | Cláudia Lobato | Born in Lisboa, Portugal, 1978, received a Diploma in Chemical Engineering (Biotechnology), Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Technical University of Lisboa (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, UTL), Portugal, in 2001 and got a Ph.D. in Biotechnology in 2006 at IST-UTL in collaboration with the University of Nevada, Reno, USA. Assistant Professor at the Department of Bioengineering, IST, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal, and co-author of more than 62 scientific articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and 12 book chapters. Her research interests at the Stem Cell Engineering Research Group (SCERG) of iBB-Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, IST, include expansion of human stem cells, namely hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem/stromal cells, cellular therapies with human adult stem cells, isolation and purification of stem cells, and bioreactors for stem cell culture. Presently, Dr. Cláudia Lobato da Silva is the Vice-President of the Portuguese Society of Stem Cells and Cellular Therapies (Sociedade Portuguesa de Células Estaminais e Terapias Celulares (SPCE-TC)). |
 | Conceição Egas | Researcher at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra and Biocant. Graduated as a Biochemist and received her Ph.D. also in Biochemistry (1997) from the University of Coimbra, working in microbial enzymology. After a postdoctoral training in the functional and structural characterization of recombinant proteins (plant saposins) (1997-2000) at the Univ. of Coimbra, she moved to Centro Regional das Beiras, Portuguese Catholic University, Viseu, as an assistant professor, where she taught Molecular Biology and Genetics. In 2005 she joined Biocant and the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) as a researcher. She is the head of Genoinseq since 2007, a core facility for next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics, the first one to operate NGS equipment in Portugal. She has implemented sequencing applications and bioinformatics tools for genomics, transcriptomics and metagenomics. She has participated in several studies addressing the composition, dynamics and function of microbial communities from diverse environments such as soil, deep-sea sediments, tap water or plants and in the study of bacterial isolates through genome sequencing. Some of her main current research topics are related to microbiome-host interactions, in understanding the role of microbial communities in plant health and fitness and to the prospection of extremophile and non-extremophile environments for enzymes with biotechnological potential. |
 | Cristina Peixoto | Graduated in Applied Chemistry (Branch Biotechnology) New University of Lisbon and holds a PhD in Engineering Sciences from Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica Biológica (ITQB) from New University of Lisbon. The main research activities are related with the development and optimization of downstream process of different products with applications as therapeutics or vaccines associated with several biological systems. She is invited lecturer since 2010 in several PhD programs. She published over 50 manuscripts in refereed international journals. Since 2009, Cristina Peixoto is responsible of the downstream process development laboratory at Animal Cell Technology Unit at IBET (Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica) and also Project Manager in research contract projects with Industrial partners. |
 | Cristina Instituto de Tecnologia António Xavier (ITQB NOVA) | Associate Professor (since September 2017) and a group leader (Applied and Environmental Mycology laboratory; www.aem.itqb.pt) at ITQB NOVA. She is also Invited Researcher at the University of the West of Scotland. Her research focus has always been problem-driven, often leading her to cross perceived discipline boundaries, such as those of Chemistry and Microbiology. She graduated in Applied Chemistry-Biotechnology (1996) and completed her PhD in Biochemistry in 2004. After conclusion of the doctorate, she have had a period of postdoctoral research in two completely distinct fields – Microbiotechnology (3 years) and Green Chemistry (1 year), both involving liaison and travelling between national and foreign institution. In 2007, she was awarded an EEA research grant of nearly €1.5M, a competitive Starting Research Ciência 2007 contract and the national Professor António Xavier memorial award for young scientists. In 2008, she established her research group. The laboratory is now outfitted to host up to 18 investigators. Solid expertise in analysing proteins, metabolites and gene expression in fungi is well established in the team. What makes her group distinctive is that we can tackle projects requiring chemical expertise which is often lacking in fundamental biology research. She has pioneered the merging of mycology and ionic liquid chemistry; a line of research that since its formation has been receiving enthusiastic support from colleagues working in diverse fields, from developmental and cellular biology and ecology to chemistry and biopolymers. Major accomplishments include the finding that we can design safe ionic liquids without impairing their capacity as solvents and catalysts, which made possible the reconstitution of plant biopolyesters as antimicrobial biomaterials. In 2015, she was awarded an ERC consolidator grant of €1.8M entitled Mimesis- Development of biomaterials through mimesis of plant defensive interfaces to fight wound infections” (ERC CoG-647928). To date she has published 45 original articles (corresponding author in 28) and 5 book chapters, and he has given 9 plenary/keynote and 35+ invited talks. |
 | Didier Cabanes | Obtained a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Toulouse, France, in 2000, on the identification and characterization of Sinorhizobium meliloti genes regulated during symbiosis with Medicago sativa. He then made a Post-Doc in the laboratory of P. Cossart at Institut Pasteur Paris, studying the mechanisms of virulence of Listeria monocytogenes. In 2005, he joined the IBMC (Porto, Portugal) to create the Group of Molecular Microbiology. He authored nearly 40 scientific articles in prestigious journals, including Science, Nature Cell Biology, PNAS and EMBO Journal. He is currently Coordinator of the Unit of Infection and immunity of the IBMC and Co-Coordinator of the Host Response and Interaction Research Program of the i3S. He is Member of the Scientific Board of the MCbiology PhD Program and Editor for Research in Microbiology. His current research aims are to decipher the virulence arsenal of Listeria monocytogenes and characterize the role of different components of the host cytoskeleton in the cellular infection process of bacterial pathogens. |
 | Fani Sousa | Graduated in Biochemistry in 2005 and in 2008 completed the PhD in Biochemistry at University of Beira Interior. At the moment, Fani Sousa is Assistant Professor at University of Beira Interior, Integrated Member of CICS-UBI – Health Sciences Research Centre (CICS – UBI) and presently is the Coordinator of the Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences (BBS) Research Group of CICS-UBI. The research activities developed since the PhD allowed the acquirement of expertise in biosynthesis and purification of gene expression vectors for gene therapy applications. In fact, the research developed during the PhD allowed the implementation of a new affinity chromatography approach, named as amino acids-DNA affinity chromatography, with important application in the purification of plasmid DNA biopharmaceuticals. More recently, Fani Sousa started to be dedicated to the RNA purification field, focusing the implementation of a technology to purify microRNAs for Alzheimer’s disease therapy. |
 | Isabel Rocha | Currently Pro-rector for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and NOVA University in Lisbon and does her research at the Biosystems Group, Center of Biological Engineering at Minho University and at ITQB-NOVA in the topics of Metabolic Engineering and Systems Biology. She did her PhD at Minho University, Portugal and a Post-Doc at the Technical University of Denmark. She is the PI of several research projects and has established collaboration with leading groups on the field of Systems Biology and Metabolic Engineering worldwide. To date, Isabel Rocha has published over 120 full papers in international journals, books and international conferences and is an evaluator of several funding agencies, including the European Commission. She currently supervises or co-supervises 8 PhD students, 3 post-docs and 4 master students, having already successfully completed their studies under her supervision 16 PhD and 50 master students. During 2007 she was a short-term visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, as part of the MIT-Portugal Program. She is part of the MIT-Portugal faculty and is in charge of a Portuguese educational program in innovation involving 4 universities and 2 PhD programs – the i-teams program. She is also one of the founders and Scientific Coordinator of the companies Biotempo and SilicoLife. SilicoLife was founded in 2010 and offers Computational Biology Solutions for Industrial Biotechnology applications. This company has won a national prize in entrepreneurship and is involved in major industrial biotechnology projects worldwide. |
 | João Paulo Gomes | Graduated in Applied Chemistry / Biotechnology in 1994 in the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of Lisbon and obtained his PhD degree in Biology in the Faculty of Sciences of Lisbon, under the supervision of Prof. Deborah Dean, from Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute / California. On behalf of his PhD in microbial genomics, he was awarded with the European PathoGenoMics PhD Award in 2007. He is/was the supervisor of eight PhD students and has published more than 70 papers in multiple journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Microbiology e Lancet Infectious Diseases. Currently, João Paulo Gomes is the Head of the Bioinformatics Unit of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Portuguese NIH (“Instituto Ricardo Jorge”) and he has been focusing his research activity on microbial genomics, such as the investigation of infectious outbreaks and the within-patient genetic variation of microbial pathogens on the course of infection. |
 | Leonilde Moreira | Leonilde M. Moreira graduated in Biochemistry at Universidade de Coimbra in 1990 and obtained her PhD in Biotechnology at Instituto Superior Técnico in 1997. After 3 years of post-doc at the Department of Biology of University of Bielefeld, Germany, she became assistant professor at the Department of Bioengineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and researcher at Institute of Bioengineering and Biosciences (https://groups.ist.utl.pt/~bsrg.daemon/site/wordpress/pathogenmutualist-bacteria-host-interaction/). Her main scientific interests are in the fields of Molecular Microbiology and Genomics, with particular emphasis on the interaction between opportunistic pathogens of the Burkholderia cepacia complex and the respiratory airways of cystic fibrosis patients. |
 | Lucília Domingues | Graduated in Chemical Engineering by University of Porto, obtained the degree of Master of Biotechnology - Bioprocess Engineering and a Ph.D. In Chemical and Biological Engineering both by University of Minho. Currently, she is Associate Professor at the Biological Engineering Department at University of Minho. Her main research area is biochemical engineering and biotechnology, in particular, molecular and industrial biotechnology. She is the responsible for the Molecular Biotechnology and Microbial Physiology area within the B.Factory – Molecular Biotechnology, Bioreactors, Biofuels and Food research group. The research work developed has been driven by the utilization of molecular biotechnological tools, namely genetic, metabolic, physiological and protein engineering for microbial strain development and intensification of bioprocesses with focus on the utilization of renewable substrates and production of metabolites and/or recombinant proteins with applications on the food, energy, chemical and/or biomedical industries. She participates/has participated in 26 projects, in which 7 was the leader, 5 international and 11 with industry partners. She is author/co-author of 2 books, 11 book chapters, 97 papers in peer-reviewed journals (H-index 25, 1986 citations in Scopus on Sept-2017, ID 35274954900) and more than 100 papers in conferences. She has a large experience in supervision of Master (43 finished), PhD (15 finished) and PostDoc students. She is Associate Editor of Bioengineered and Biomed Research International. She integrates the Editorial Advisory Board of Bioethanol Journal. She is a regular Referee of several scientific journals. |
 | Mara Freire | PhD degree from University of Aveiro, followed by post-doctoral research activities at ITQB2, New University of Lisbon, Portugal. Currently, she is a Coordinator Researcher at CICECO, Chemistry Department, University of Aveiro, the Director of Group 5 - Biomedic and Biomimetic Materials - within CICECO, and a member of the Young Scientists Seminar of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. In addition to other projects and awards, in 2014 Freire was a recipient of an European Research Council (ERC) Grant. Her main research interests comprise the development of more sustainable separation, concentration and purification platforms for value-added compounds with therapeutic applications. Websites: Institutional website: https://www.ciceco.ua.pt/MaraFreire; Scopus Author ID: 7102299235; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8895-0614; Researcher ID: https://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-8458-2008 |
 | Miguel Prudêncio | Completed his PhD by the University of East Anglia in 2000, followed by a post-doctoral period at the University of Leiden. In 2005, he became a post-doc in the field of malaria, at iMM Lisboa. In 2008 he became a Staff Scientist of IMM’s Malaria Unit and in July 2013 he became an independent Group Leader at iMM Lisboa, heading the Prudêncio lab. Miguel’s research focuses on Plasmodium liver stages and their potential for anti-malarial intervention. His interests include nutrient acquisition by hepatic Plasmodium parasites, novel parasite-host interactions, and Plasmodium-Trypanosoma co-infections, as well as the identification of new anti-Plasmodial compounds and the development of a new malaria vaccination strategy, a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Malaria Vaccine Initiative. Miguel is the author of over 70 scientific articles, has earned several scientific and innovation prizes, and is an inventor of five independent patents. He is a founding member the iMM Lisboa spin-off company RoPlaVac. |
 | Paula Morais | Born in Lisbon. Graduated in Biology and completed her doctorate in Microbiology at the University of Coimbra. Since 1995 she lectures there, first in the Biochemistry department, and later in the Life Sciences department, where she coordinated 4 years the Biochemistry BSc. Since her doctorate, Paula has worked in research focused on the structure and function of microbial communities in soil and contaminated waters. Her research group studies the genetic organisation of microbial strains resistant to these environments, with a special focus on genetic and metabolic mechanisms of metal resistance. The group apply the research results in the design of biotools based on genetically modified or immobilised microorganisms for biodetection, bioremediation or biorecovery of materials. Bacterial taxonomy and phylogeny are also included in the research. Recently, she has coordinated a study in the role of microorganisms in pine wilt disease. She was the coordinator of 3 international, and 8 national scientific projects. She is a member of the CEMMPRE Raw Materials group. Since 2014, coordinates the BioAlMinore project, a Commitment of the European Partnership for Innovation on Raw Materials. She is an academic editor for the PLOS One journal. Paula is frequently involved in promoting science education, as well as having fun with motivating younger students for science and microbiology. |
 | Paula Teixeira | Graduate of Faculty of Biotecnology of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa with a B.Sc. in Food Engineering (1990) and a PhD in Biotechnology (1995). Paula Teixeira has been an Assistant Professor in Food Microbiology at ESB-UCP since 2005 having previously been a Senior Consultant on Food Safety at the same institution. She has held a number of coordination positions at the ESB-UCP, including Coordinator of Pos-graduation Course in Food safety from (2002 – present) and Coordinator of Masters Course in Food Innovation (2007-present). Paula Teixeira has participated in and led a large number of research projects in the area of Food Microbiology/Food Safety. She has been author/co-author of several book chapters and more than 140 original articles in peer reviewed journals (index h= 34) and given many more public presentations. Paula Teixeira supervised several externally funded research fellowships, as well as 17 and 39 successfully concluded PhD and Master thesis, respectively. She is actually supervising 5 PhD, 4 Pos-doc students and several master students. She has been Associate Editor of Frontiers in Food Microbiology, Member of the Editorial Board of International Journal of Food Microbiology and Food Microbiology. |