Plenary Speakers
Professor Víctor de Lorenzo
Prof. Victor De Lorenzo is a lead researcher within the Systems Biology Program at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CSIC) in Madrid. His current research focus involves deep engineering of soil bacteria both as cell factories for industrial biotransformations and as agents for environmental bioremediation and valorisation of toxic waste. Other areas of research include environmental microbiology, metabolic engineering, Pseudomonas putida biology and biotechnology, gene expression regulation, synthetic (micro)biology, and global warming.
Professor Jay Hinton
Prof. Jay Hinton is a group leader at the University of Liverpool in the UK, where he investigates the molecular basis of Salmonella pathogenesis using a combination of transcriptomics, functional genomics, and microbiology. His current research focuses on understanding how African invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella (iNTS) strains evolve and cause disease. He led the 10,000 Salmonella genome project. Other areas of interest include host-pathogen interactions, gene regulation during infection, the role of prophages in bacterial virulence, and the development of novel approaches to combat emerging bacterial pathogens.
Invited Speakers
Margarida Oliveira
Prof. Maria Margarida Oliveira leads the GPlantS lab at ITQB NOVA, which focuses on studying how environmental factors affect gene expression and plant development. The lab places particular emphasis on stress conditions such as salinity, drought, and temperature. Using a variety of genomics approaches, the GPlantS lab works with different plant models, with a primary focus on rice—both due to its global significance as a staple food crop and because Portugal has the highest per capita rice consumption in the EU.
Agostinho Antunes
Prof. Agostinho Antunes is the head of the Evolutionary Genomics and Bioinformatics group at CIIMAR, University of Porto, Portugal, focusing on comparative genomics, molecular evolution, and conservation genetics. He has contributed to major international genome projects, including the Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K), the great white shark genome, the 47,500-year-old scimitar-toothed cat genome, and is currently engaged in various other genome ventures. He has also participated in European initiatives like ShareBiotech, the H2020 IGNITE network, on comparative genomics of non-model invertebrates, the European Venom Network (EUVEN), and he is currently part of iCulture, fostering macroalgae omics research.
Sónia Melo
Prof. Sónia Melo's expertise involves exosomes biology, pancreatic cancer and in vivo models of disease. She has trained as a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA and MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA, as an EMBO and Human Frontiers Fellow. She heads an independent research line at I3S since 2015, and she is the coordinator of pre-clinical research in the Porto Comprehensive Cancer Center Program since 2020. She was distinguished with the Best ImmunOncology Project Award by AstraZeneca Foundation, a National Cancer Crowd Funding and the UNESCO-L’Oreal Prize for Women in Science.