Plenary session 1: Alessandra Marti

Alessandra Marti is an Associate Professor at the Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences (DeFENS) at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. Her main research activity focuses on understanding the effects of processing on the interactions among starch, protein, fibre and water - the main components in grains and related products – as well as their role on the quality of final products with particular attention to bread and pasta. A multidisciplinary study is usually adopted to provide an in-depth overview of the macromolecular organization in cereal products. A.M. is involved in the development of fibre-enriched products, gluten-free products and in the exploitation optimization of legumes, minor cereals, pseudocereals, and perennial crops.

Plenary session 2: Carlo Giuseppe Rizzello

Carlo Giuseppe Rizzello, is Full Professor in Food Microbiology at La Sapienza University of Rome (Department of Environmental Biology), Italy. Before, he was Researcher and then Associate Professor at University of Bari (Italy). He is author of 154 peer-reviewed articles (total citations, approx. 7764; h-index, 54 reported on Scopus) 22 book chapters and 11 patents (with more than 20 extensions reported on google patents). His area of expertise includes proteomics and enzymology of lactic acid bacteria; bioactive compounds; nutritional and functional aspects of fermented foods; fermented food biotechnologies; biotechnological protocols for the food wastes valorisation. He was an evaluation panel member for project proposals under national and International calls, and from 2022, he is vice-president of the SIMTREA, Italian Society Of Agro-Food And Environmental Microbiology. He is member of the editorial boards of International Journal of Food Microbiology and Foods, and guest associate Editor for Frontiers in Nutrition, Frontiers in Microbiology and Fermentation. He is actually engaged as co-Editor of the books: “Biotecnologia dei prodotti lievitati da Forno” (Casa Editrice Ambrosiana) and “Basic Methods and Protocols on Sourdough” (Springer Nature). He is involved as Scientific responsible in National and International public research projects including European projects FunBrew (call: Susfood2), Wastebake (Call: Eurotransbio); BIOPROT (Call: Susfood). Moreover, he was scientific responsible for technology transfer projects (ca. 60) with many industries af the agri-food sector.

Plenary session 3: Claudia Monika Haros

Claudia Monika Haros, Chemist, graduated from School of Exact and Natural Sciences, University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentine in 1990. She is also MSc in Bromatology and Food Technology (1992); and MSc in Biology Analysis (1997) from UBA. She is Ph.D in Chemistry (UBA-1999). From 2008 she is permanent staff of CSIC and continues her investigation in the Cereal Group, Department of Food Science of IATA. Since the early stages of her career, she was mainly engaged in research in respect to Cereal Science and Technology field. The major theme in Dr. Haros’s research is the utilization of different strategies to improve nutritional and/or functional value of cereal by-products or cereal ingredients. These strategies include use different physical, biochemical, or biological treatments during milling cereal process; development new cereal by-products by including novel ingredients; use new starter phytase producers for regulating content and composition of lower myo-inositol phosphates in cereal by-products with clear nutritional and health benefits.

In recent years her research focused on: Nutritional studies of vegetable raw materials and/or their by-products on their biological activity for their subsequent integration into new food matrices. For this purpose, different in vitro and in vivo strategies are utilized for determining nutritional and/or biological activities. These assays include the determination of bioaccessibility/bioavailability of minerals, glycaemic index and nutrient inputs according to Dietary Reference Intakes/Adequate Intakes (DRIs/AIs). The ultimate objective is to identify dietetic solutions and innovations to prevent diseases and to improve consumers’ well-being and health.

Plenary session 4: Laura Román

Laura Román is a Novo Nordisk postdoctoral scientist working at the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University (Denmark). Her current research efforts center on the understanding of the molecular details of structure formation in plant-based food systems. Her work lies at the interface between molecular structures and physical chemistry of biomaterials. Laura has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph (Canada) for more than 2 years, where her work focused on carbohydrate glycomics, and processomics for structure-function and improved health.

Laura has been recently awarded in Denmark with the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science prize for her research career. Laura Roman's current project focuses on physicochemical studies of protein-starch interactions in complex biopolymer matrices, with a multidisciplinary approach. The overall goal is to understand the conformational and supramolecular mechanisms that lead to the interactions between plant-based proteins and starch during processing, critical to develop more sustainable and nutritious functional plant-based foods.

Plenary session 5: Mario M. Martinez

Mario Martinez started his independent research career as Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at the University of Guelph (ON, Canada) in August 2017, where he was awarded the College of Engineering and Physical Science (CEPS) Assistant Professor Research Excellence Award from CEPS and the Ontario Early Researcher Award (ERA) from the Government of Ontario. Mario Martinez joined Aarhus University in April 2020 as Tenure Track Assistant Professor, receiving shortly after the Young Scientist Research Award by the American Association of Cereal Chemists International (now Cereals & Grains Association). Mario is adjunct Assistant Professor at the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research (Purdue University, IN, USA) and at the Department of Physics of the University of Guelph (ON, Canada).

Mario has developed a research portfolio on food carbohydrates and associated metabolites that can be encompassed by three distinct competence areas (glycomics, structuring and health-promoting compounds). He possesses a multidisciplinary background that conglomerates processing, foodomics and biopolymer chemistry. Since 2017, Mario works on the fundamentals aspects related to the molecular and supramolecular architecture of glycans, structuring technologies of plant-based foods, health-promoting compounds, and glycan-based packaging solutions. All in all, Mario´s team relies on coherent and focused food system approaches to find common ground for health and environmental sustainability.

Plenary session 6: Manuela Pintado

Maria Manuela Estevez Pintado is currently Associate Professor of the College of Biotechnology of the Portuguese Catholic University (ESB-UCP), Associate Director of School of Biotechnology from Universidade Católica Portuguesa (ESB-UCP, Porto, Portugal) and the director of CBQF (Chemistry and Biotechnology Center – State Associate Laboratory), a ESB-UCP research unit and Associate Laboratory. In research field she is Leader of Biobased and Biomedical Group and Head of Bioactive and Bioproducts Research Laboratory.

Academically, she has a B.Sc. in Pharmacy (Clinical Analysis and Pharmacy options) from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (1991), she frequented the curricular part of the Food Science and Engineering Masters from the Portuguese Catholic University (1993) and finished her Ph.D. in Biotechnology (in the field of Food Science and Engineering) from the Portuguese Catholic University in 1999.
Among other relevant activities some are highlighted: Coordinator of the partnership and Project Amyris-UCP (since 2016), Member of IBET advisory Member (since 2016), Member of Strategic Group for AgroFood, Forest and Biodiversity and Member of Strategic Group for Circular Economy nominated by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Vice-President of the Scientific Council for Natural and Environmental Sciences (CCCNA) of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), one of the four Scientific Councils established by FCT (2013-2016), Coordinator of the Evaluation Committee of Final Reports of FCT projects for Biological Engineering and Biotechnology area (since 2013), Vice-President of European Chitin Society (since 2013-2017), Chair for SIG (Special Interest Group) – Bioactive Compounds of ISEKI Food Association (since 2014), member of several National and international Evaluation Committee for post-graduate studies and research projects. She has established strong interaction with industry and she has been Coordinator of Department of Scientific Services for Industry (SETIF) (2013-2016). Additionally, she has been an invited professor at Paraíba Federal University (from 2012 to 2016).
The research can be summarized into: (i) development, compositional characterization and validation of bioactivity of functional and bioactive ingredients (proteins and biopeptides, antioxidants, probiotics, prebiotics and antimicrobials) and study applications on the development of novel functional foods and other added value applications (ii) by-product and new resources valorization through bioprocesses and extraction processes aiming to obtain molecules/extracts fully characterized in terms of composition, bioactivities, functionalities and safety to be explored as high-added value bioproducts in different high value fields (iii) application of the above research developments to other Biotechnological fields. During her scientific trajectory, she published several papers (currently more than 475 papers) in refereed international journals and authored 66 chapters in handbooks on these topics, and creator of 41 patents. She has a h-index of 52 with more ca. 10700 citations.
She has participated in several professional meetings and international symposia and congresses presenting 175 invited oral communications and 190 selected oral communications and about 650 posters in National and International conferences. She supervises(ed) or co-supervises(ed) 76 MSc, 70 PhD thesis and 50 post-doc scholarships as well as 30 international training scholarships and 80 research grants. She has been a part of 60 PhD evaluation panels and 55 MSc. evaluation panels. Additionally, she has been responsible for the coordination and co-coordination of 100 externally funded (through national and international funds) research and development projects and has been involved in collaborations with multiple Universities and Research Centers, companies and Associations/technology clusters. Given her overall curricular merit, she has been recognized by the Ciência Viva program as one of the females faces of the Portuguese science community in its book dedicated to Portuguese scientist women.