Speakers

Aaron Ciechanover was born in Haifa, Israel in 1947. He is currently a Distinguished Research Professor in the Faculty of medicine at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. He received his M.Sc. (1971) and M.D. (1973) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He then completed his national service (1973-1976) as military physician, and continued his studies to obtain a doctorate in biological sciences in the Faculty of Medicine in the Technion (D.Sc.; 1982). There, as a graduate student with Dr. Avram Hershko and in collaboration with Dr. Irwin A. Rose from the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, USA, they discovered that covalent attachment of ubiquitin to a target protein signals it for degradation. They deciphered the mechanism of conjugation, described the general proteolytic functions of the system, and proposed a model according to which this modification serves as a recognition signal for a specific downstream protease. As a post- doctoral fellow with Dr. Harvey Lodish at the M.I.T., he continued his studies on the ubiquitin system and made additional important discoveries. Along the years it has become clear that ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis plays major roles in numerous cellular processes, and aberrations in the system underlie the pathogenetic mechanisms of many diseases, among them certain malignancies and neurodegenerative disorders. Consequently, the system has become an important platform for drug development. Among the numerous prizes Ciechanover received are the 2000 Albert Lasker Award, the 2002 EMET Prize, the 2003 Israel Prize, and the 2004 Nobel Prize (Chemistry; shared with Drs. Hershko and Rose). Among many academies, Ciechanover is member of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Foreign Fellow), the American Philosophical Society, the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) and Medicine (NAM) of the USA (Foreign Associate), the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; Foreign Member), the Russian Academy of Sciences (Foreign Member), and the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina).

Patrycja Golińska has graduated from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (NCU), Poland. In 2004 she obtained MSc degree in biology and in 2008 PhD degree in biological sciences. Her PhD thesis was focused on the study of the actinomycetes of forest soils, their biodiversity, and enzymatic and biocontrol activities. In 2011 and 2012 she was a post-doctoral fellow in School of Biology of Newcastle University (UK), in the laboratory of Prof. Michael Goodfellow, where she investigated taxonomy of actinomycetes from acidic environments. In 2015 she participated in a sea expedition in the Southern Ocean within an interdisciplinary grant from EC "PHARMADEEP: New pharmaceuticals from the deep Antarctic". In 2017 she obtained habilitation in the field of biological sciences, discipline of biology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Since 2019 she has been Associated Professor of NCU and working in the Department of Microbiology. In her research team several project have been conducted (MSCA, NCN, NAWA) which are focused on taxonomy of actinomycetes from extreme environments (deserts, saline lakes, acidic soils) and their biotechnological potential in industry, medicine and agriculture, and also on bionanotechnology – the use of microorganisms to synthesise nanoparticles for application in medicine, food industry, and for plant protection and plant growth promotion.

Patrycja Golińska has published over 70 papers in the field of taxonomy and bionanotechnology 20 chapters and edited 3 books in reputed publishers (Taylor and Francis Group). She supervised 2 PhD theses and two other are at different stages of PhD processing. She is a member of Polish Society of Microbiologists and FEMS.

Professor Müller is Head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Bioenergetics at Goethe University,Frankfurt. His research interest is the metabolism and biochemistry of anaerobic microorganisms with a focus on acetogenic bacteria. His group discovered how these bacteria make a living during autotrophic and heterotrophic growth, characterized the enzymes involved in bioenergetics, carbon and electron flow and redox homeostasis. His group established the use of acetogens to capture and store hydrogen as well as carbon dioxide. The lab also uses archaea to study the metabolic processes that allow microbial life under extreme energy limitation and that couple CO2fixation to ATP synthesis. He has directed an European-wide ERA-IB Network on industrial applications of acetogenic bacteria.He has co-authored close to300papers and was awarded in 2016 one of the prestigious Advanced Investigator Grantsof the European Research Council to work on "Acetogenic bacteria: from basic physiology viagene regulation to application in industrial biotechnology".In 2022 he was awarded with a Reinhart-Koselleck project of the German Research Foundation (DFG) for his work on the role of cytochromes in actetogensand in 2023 he was elected as fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. For further information: www.mikrobiologie-frankfurt.de

Ewa Łojkowska has graduated from Nicolaus Copernicus University of Toruń, Poland and in 1984 she has obtained PhD degree in agricultural sciences. Her thesis was focused on the biochemical mechanisms of plant tresistance to plant pathogenic bacteria. In 1986-1988, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she showed, for the first time, that somatic hybridization can be useful for the introduction of the important agronomical traits from wild Solanum species to cultivated varieties. In 1991 she has obtained habilitation at Life Science University of Poznan, Poland. In years 1992-1993 was a visiting professor at Institute National des Sciences Appliques at Lyon, France, where she identified and characterized secondary pectate lyases produced by pectinolytic bacteria Dickeya dadantii. Since 1994 she is a Professor and Head of Department of Plant Protection and Biotechnology, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology University of Gdansk & Medical University of Gdańsk (IFB UG & MUG). In her laboratory, several projects are conducted, which are focused on genomic and phenomic-oriented studies on soft rot Pectobacteriaceae aiming to reveal molecular mechanisms responsible for their virulence and re-evaluation of their taxonomy. She is also involved in the development of novel innovative methods for eradication bacterial plant pathogens.

Ewa Łojkowska is a co-author of over 150 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and over 200 communications on scientific conferences. She supervised 21 PhD theses, and led over 15 research projects financed from national and international agencies. She is a member of American Society of Phytopathology, European Association for Potato Research, Polish Society of Phytopathology, Polish Society of Biochemistry and Polish Society of Experimental Plant Biology. She was a Dean of IFB UG & MUG (2005-2012). She is a President of Committee of Biotechnology of Polish Academy of Sciences, President of Professor Wacław Szybalski Foundation, Head of the Jury for the Program L'OREAL-UNESCO for Women in Science and Head of the Women Club at the Fahrenheit Universities of Gdańsk.

Andriy Sibirny graduated from the University of Lviv and his career is connected with the Institute of Cell Biology, The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the same city. He also works as a Professor at the University of Rzeszow, Poland. Prof Sibirny is a specialist in cell biology and biotechnology of non-conventional yeasts. He described new genes involved in autophagy and pexophagy, ATG26, ATG28 and ATG35 and is studying high-temperature alcoholic xylose fermentation, and riboflavin and flavin nucleotide synthesis. He has constructed efficient producers of glutathione, riboflavin, FMN, FAD, and the bacterial antibiotic, roseoflavin, in yeasts.

Aniketkumar K. Gade, has a diverse educational and research background, encompassing a Bachelor's in Microbiology (1998), a Master's in Biotechnology (2000), Advance Diploma in Bioinformatics (2002) and a Ph.D. in Biotechnology (2012). He has successfully carried out his doctoral research on the topic "Mycofabrication of silver nanoparticles by using different Phoma spp.", under the able guidance of Prof. Mahendra Rai. His research areas of interest include fields like microbial biotechnology in general and Nanobiotechnology in particular. He is actively involved in biogenic synthesis of nanomaterials and their role nano-antimicrobials for development of nano-based products like nanogels, and nano-based agriculture products like nano-fungicides and nano-fertilizers. He received the Raman Post-Doctoral research fellowship from UGC, New Delhi in 2013-14 and completed his one-year Post-doctoral research work in Professor Anne Anderson's lab at the Biology Department, Utah State University, Logan. He visited the Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Campinas, Brazil in 2011 under Indo - Brazil Collaborative Research Project. He worked as Assistant Professor in Department of Biotechnology, Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University, Amravati, Maharashtra, India and as Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Science and Biotechnology at Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. Since October, 2023 he is employed on the position of associated professor in Department of Microbiology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland within NSC POLONEZ BIS 2 grant co-funded by European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant. Dr. Aniketkumar has completed several government-funded (DST, UGC, MoEF, DRDO, RGSTC) research projects and holds two Indian patents to his credit. Throughout his research journey, Dr. Aniketkumar has authored and co-authored 89 research articles in International high-impact peer-reviewed journals, 27- International Book chapters and submitted 36 sequences of ITS region to NCBI database. He also served as a referee for several international peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Ewa Chrostek obtained her Ph.D. in Host-Microbe Interactions in 2014 (Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, Oeiras, Portugal), and later completed a series of postdoctoral fellowships: EMBO at Max Planck Institute of Infection Biology (Berlin, Germany), FEBS and Marie Skłodowska-Curie at the University of Liverpool (UK). After obtaining an ERC Starting Grant and a Lectureship of the Liverpool University, she returned to Poland in 2023. Her research group, based at Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland), is studying intracellular symbionts of insects, mostly bacteria and viruses. Ewa is mostly interested in molecular mechanisms of interactions between insects and microbes and devising molecular tools to study these elusive associations.

Agnieszka Szalewska-Pałasz has graduated from Faculty of Biology, University of Gdańsk. In 1998 she obtained PhD in molecular biology. She did postdoctoral fellowships in Prof. Mike Cashel's laboratory at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA) (1998-2001) and later in Prof. Vicky Shingler' team at the University of Umea, Sweden (2002-2004). After that, she continued work at the University of Gdańsk. She obtained habilitation (2008) and full professorship title (2016), establishing her own research group. She is now a Head of the Department of Bacterial Molecular Genetics. Her main research interest originating from postdoctoral studies was focused on bacterial stress response, affecting main processes in bacteria, in particular a regulation of gene expression. She worked on virus-host interactions using bacteriophages as models and the connection between bacterial metabolism and DNA replication. Recently, a main focus of her research group involves mechanisms of antibacterial effects of plant secondary metabolites against pathogenic bacteria.

Marcin Wolański has graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology in 2005, and obtained his PhD in molecular biology at Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy in Wrocław (Polish Academy of Sciences) in 2011. His PhD research was focused on identification of novel protein regulators of chromosomal replication in Streptomyces coelicolor of actinomycetes. After completing his PhD, he was involved, as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wrocław, in two multinational ERA-IB projects (GenoDrug and NeBrasCa), where he investigated transcriptional regulation in bacterial secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters producing biologically active compounds. In 2022, to develop methods to study bacterial metabolites, he did a research stay in the laboratory of Prof. Harald Gross at the University of Tuebingen (Germany).

In his current research he focuses on mechanisms controlling expression of secondary metabolite gene clusters, especially those regulated by multiple regulators, and morphological development in actinomycetes. He was involved in several national and international grants, supervised numerous bachelor and master projects, co-supervised 2 PhD theses, and co-authored 16 publications.

Beate Averhoff studied microbiology in Göttingen and got her PhD with Gerhard Gottschalk on a biotechnological project. After doing a Postdoc with Nicholas Ornston at Yale University on Acinetobacter baylyi she worked in Braunschweig (Ken Timmis), had an in interims professorschip in Genetics at LMU Munich before she finally moved to Frankfurt. Prof. Averhoff is a leader in the field of biology of Acinetobacter. Currently her lab focusses on understanding the mechanisms of adaptation of A. baumannii to the human host. Her group discovered several novel energy and carbon sources utilized by A. baumannii in the human host, identified the molecular basis of osmotolerance and established the pathways for lipid metabolism. The second leg of her work is the analyses of horizontal gene transfer in bacteria. In their thermophilic model system Thermus thermophilus they elucidated the subunit composition, structure, dynamics and function of the DNA translocator in Thermus thermophilus, a macromolecular transport machinery that spans the entire cell periphery from the cytoplasmic membrane to the medium. Beate Averhoff is the treasurer of the German Society for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM) and the delegate of the VAAM to the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS). For further information: www.mikrobiologie-frankfurt.de

Andrzej Gamian graduated from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Wroclaw in 1975 and he started to work at the Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, PAS where he carried out his doctoral studies on the immunochemistry of Shigella lipopolysaccharides and obtained his PhD in 1982. Between 1984-86 he joined a research group at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, where he was working on the development of anti-meningococcal B meningitis vaccine. In 1990 he was a scholar at the CNRS in Grenoble, France, working on the structure of the sugar part of the endotoxins. He was also involved in the research on bacterial antigens at the Arrhenius Laboratory in Stockholm and Uppsala. In 1993 he received his habilitation for the work on the Enterobacteriaceae lipopolysaccharides containing sialic acid, and ten years later was nominated full professor by the President of the Republic of Poland. Since 1994 has been the head of the Department of Immunology of Infectious Diseases, HIIET PAS. Between 2006-2020 he was also the head of the Department of Medical Biochemistry, Medical University in Wroclaw. Since July 2020 has been the Director of the HIIET, PAS in Wroclaw. He has co-authored over 380 scientific publications and is the owner of 50 patents and patent applications. His scientific interests focus mainly on the study of polysaccharides immunochemistry, the study of glycolipids, microbial proteins, and phages, and their utility in diagnostics, antiviral and antibacterial vaccine design and clinical therapy. His most significant scientific interests are focused on the issue of protein glycation and the consequences of AGEs aggregation in the body. In addition, his expertise includes methods of determining disease markers, especially metabolic, vascular, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Paulina Niedźwiedzka-Rystwej has graduated from University of Szczecin, Poland obtaining in 2005 MSc degree in biology and simultaneously BSc in English philology, and in 2008 PhD degree in immunology. Her PhD thesis was focused on immune responses and apoptosis in the experimental infection of rabbits with Lagovirus europaeus. Since 2019 she is a leader of the research team of experimental immunology and immunobiology of infectious and cancer diseases at the Institute of Biology of the University of Szczecin, Poland. In her laboratory, projects focused mainly on immune responses, T cell exhaustion, apoptosis and autophagy in viral infections and cancer are conducted. She also is a deputy director of the US Doctoral School. Author and co-author of over 170 scientific papers with a total IF of over 200, on topics related to veterinary immunology, virology and immunobiology of infectious and cancer diseases. Co-author of translations of textbooks on Immunology. Member of the Board of the Polish Society of Experimental and Clinical Immunology. She is an editor of scientific journals, Acta Biochimica Polonica, Journal of Immunological Research and Scientific Reports. Leader and co-executor of KBN, NCN, NCBiR grants in the field of veterinary immunology and infectious diseases in humans. Winner of many scientific awards.

Vartul Sangal is an Assistant Professor in Cellular and Molecular Sciences in the Department of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Dr Sangal completed his Ph.D. at the Max-Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin followed by postdoctoral research at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He joined Northumbria University in September 2013.

He has investigated evolutionary dynamics and niche adaptation in a number of pathogenic bacteria by analysing whole genome sequences and molecular characterisation of virulence genes in the laboratory. His research highlighted the importance of molecular genetic approaches over classical biochemical typing for reliable identification of pathogenic bacteria in clinics and revealed patterns of global dissemination and local adaptation of multidrug resistance lineages. His work on integrating genomic approaches in prokaryotic systematics and understanding the mechanisms of bacterial adaptation in extreme environments has been very well received by the community and has resulted in several national and international collaborations.

His current research is focused on understanding microbial community ecology in diverse environments using an integrated omics approach including metagenomics, proteomics and metabolomics. He identified several bacterial species in the dust samples from daycare providers and homes that may help young children develop immunity against various infectious and noncommunicable diseases. More recently, he has been working on the impact of gut microbiome on health among key pollinators and microbial communities in challenging soil environments.

His publications include 71 articles in international peer reviewed journals, 7 book chapters and two letters/comments (https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/en/persons/vartul-sangal).

Agnieszka Rybak-Wolf, Technology Platform Leader at MDC, pursued biotechnology in Poland (UMCS) before completing her PhD in Germany (FU/Charite). With a robust foundation in neurobiology and systems biology, she has contributed to better understanding of gene regulation in neuronal differentiation and brain development. Leading the Organoid Platform at MDC, Rybak-Wolf focuses on developing 3D brain models for disease study and enhancing neural tissue maturation.

Katarzyna Potrykus obtained her Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of Gdańsk in 2003, and later did a long-term (8 years) Postdoc fellowship with Prof. Mike Cashel at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA). Upon returning to Poland in 2012, she obtained habilitation and established her own research group. She later obtained a full-professor title. Her research is centered on bacterial stress responses (especially the stringent response and its alarmones), as well as on transcriptional regulation by RNA polymerase secondary channel binding proteins.

Joanna Kozieł is an Associate Professor at the Microbiology Department, Faculty of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Biotechnology at Jagiellonian University. She obtained her MSc degree in biology in 2000 and a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry in 2004. She has completed numerous research internships, including Klinikum der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, and the University of Louisville, USA. Since 2009, she has been the Head of the 'The microbiota-host interaction' research group. Among the main scientific topics of her team is the identification of selected virulence strategies of bacteria leading to the impairment of innate immune defense, with an emphasis on leukocytes (macrophages, neutrophils, lymphocytes), antibacterial peptides, and the complement system. Her laboratory uses cell biology approaches as well as transgenic mice and disease models to delineate molecular mechanisms underlying the role of innate immunity in the inflammatory reaction. She received the Fulbright Scholarship and the L'Oreal Women in Science award. She is the author of 86 scientific publications in renowned periodicals, including Nature Reviews Rheumatology, Journal of Immunology, PLoS Pathogens, and many others.

Przemysław Płociński is molecular microbiologist from Lodz, Poland. He gained experience during long-term stays at the Health Science Center of the University of Texas, USA, the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, the Francis Crick Institute in London and in the Genome Damage and Stability Centre in Brighton, the UK. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Medical Biology PAS in Łódź and at the Department of Immunology and Infectious Biology, at the University of Łódź. His research focuses mainly on biology of infection, where he is using advanced proteomic and transcriptomic analyzes to evaluate novel bacterial drug targets and to search for future antimicrobials. Author of over 40 manuscripts, including prestigeous publications in Nature Communications and Nucleic Acids Research. Played a role of Principal Investigator or Leader in research grants from Ministry of Science and Higher Education, National Science Center, Foundation for Polish Science and National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA).

Volodymyr Ivanytsia graduated from Mechnikov University in Odesa, Ukraine, and has been associated with the university throughout his career. He obtained his PhD in microbiology in 1979. His doctoral dissertation was on the study of microbial cenosis in marine ecosystems, which he defended in 1996 at the Institute of Microbiology and Virology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv. He was promoted to Professor in 1997. Since 1983 he has been the Head of the Department of Microbiology, Virology and Biotechnology and Scientific Director of the Scientific Centre for Marine Biology and Biotechnology - which he founded, and since 2015 Professor. Volodymyr Ivanytsia has led more than 30 research projects, supervised 15 PhD theses and co-authored more than 250 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, 9 monographs and 20 patents. He leads projects aimed at studying the biodiversity of the Black Sea microbiome, its biotechnological potential, the search for producers of antimicrobial and anticancer metabolites for medicine, and the development of microbial biotechnologies for agricultural production and environmental remediation using marine bioresources. He is editor of several scientific journals and editor-in-chief of the journal Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Dagmara Jakimowicz graduated from University of Wroclaw in 1996 and in 2000 obtained her Ph.D. in biological sciences at the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy (IIET), Polish Academy of Sciences. She did a 4-years Postdoc training in John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK during which she obtained the Marie Curie fellowship. Upon returning to Poland she joined IIET and after obtaining habilitation in 2008, she established her research group at the Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wroclaw. She completed short term research internships at the University of Oxford (in 2014 and 2015) and at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2019). She obtained a full-professor title in 2018. Her research is focused on bacterial chromosome organisation and segregation, as well as the role of chromosome topology in regulation of transcription.

Jarosław Dziadek has graduated from University of Łódź, Poland. In 1990 he obtained an MSc degree in biology and a 1993 Ph.D. degree in microbiology. His Ph.D. thesis was focused on the molecular and genetic study of fast-growing mycobacteria able to biotransform sterols. In 1994 he was a JSPS Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Yoshikatsu Murooka, Dept. of Fermentation Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Hiroshima University, Japan. In 1999 he was a Fulbright Fellow and then a post-doctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Malini Rajagopalan, Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Texas, Health Centre at Tyler, Texas, U.S.A. investigating mycobacterial replication and cell division. Since 2002 he is a Professor and Head of Mycobacterium Genetics and Physiology Laboratory at the Centre of Microbiology and Virology (later Institute of Medical Biology), Polish Academy of Sciences. Dziadek's group specializes in the genetic study of mycobacteria. He has published over 140 papers in the field of molecular study of mycobacteria including in leading journals such as Nat Commun., NAR, AAC, Mol. Microbiol., Clin. Microbiol. Rev., Sci. Rep., etc. Dziadek's laboratory at the IBM PAN has facilities allowing experiments with tubercle bacilli. The Dziadek group's expertise especially in DNA repair, cell division, cholesterol metabolism, and cell wall biosynthesis concerning pathogenesis. The group has successfully applied a wide range of in vitro and in vivo methods for studies of DNA mutagenesis and mutants analysis. Prof. Dziadek was awarded as a leader of more than 10 research projects funded by national and international sources a total of over 10 mln euros. Sixteen Ph.D. Projects were completed in Dziadek's group and four other students are at different stages of Ph.D. processing. Since 2013 he is a Director of the Institute of Medical Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences.

Jacek Jemielity has graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw in 1997. He received a Ph.D. degree in 2002 and his habilitation in 2012, both at the same Faculty. He worked at the Department of Biophysics of the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw. He also gathered research experience at the Institute of Structural Biology in France and the University of Turku in Finland, among other places. He received a full professorship in 2020.
Professor Jemielity specializes in organic and biological chemistry and the biochemistry of nucleotides and nucleic acids. He is the head of the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Centre of New Technologies at the University of Warsaw, in which he leads the research group Jemielity Group. Moreover, he co-founded and heads ExploRNA Therapeutics, a spin-off company of the University of Warsaw, in which the technology of chemically modified mRNA is developed and then used in the design of novel therapies. He co-authored 140 publications for top journals, including Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nature Communications, Chemical Science, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and Nucleic Acids Research. These articles were cited more than 3200 times. He is the inventor of solutions protected worldwide by nine patents or patent applications; two of them were bought by BioNTech, four by ExploRNA Therapeutics.
He has been awarded by: FNP Prize Laureate in Chemistry 2021 for developing chemical modifications of mRNA as tools for therapeutic applications and studies on cellular processes – the most prestigious scientific award in Poland (2021); Nomination to the European Inventor Award organized by European Patent office (nomination in research category, 2018); Honorary badge form Prime Minister of Poland "For merits for inventiveness" (2018); President's of Poland Economy Award (research category 2017); Scientific Award for Young Scientists of the "Polityka" Foundation (VIII Edition) (2008); Rector Grzegorz Bialkowski Award from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw for "Designing and chemical synthesis of mRNA cap analogues and biophysical studies of their interaction with protein factors" (2008); University of Warsaw Rector's awards (2004, 2011, 2018 and 2021).

Grzegorz Wegrzyn has graduated from University of Gdansk, Poland. In 1987 he obtained MSc degree in biology, and in 1991 PhD degree in molecular genetics. His PhD thesis was focused on the regulation of DNA replication in starved cells. Then (in 1991), he was a research fellow at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Nottingham Medical School (UK), where he worked on the mechanisms of gene expression regulation in bacteria. In 1992 he was a post-doctoral researcher at Center for Molecular Genetics, University of California at San Diego (USA), where he investigated regulation of viral DNA replication. Since 1996 he is a Professor and Head of Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Gdansk (Poland). In his laboratory, several projects are conducted, which are focused mainly on regulation of gene expression and DNA replication, control of development of bacteriophages, the use of bacteriophages in biotechnological applications, and mechanisms and new treatment methods of human genetic and neurodegenerative diseases. Grzegorz Wegrzyn is a co-author of over 500 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and over 600 communications on scientific conferences. He supervised 57 PhD theses, and led over 30 research projects within both national and international grants. He is a member of American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society for Microbiology, Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, and International Society for Plasmid Biology. He is an editor of several scientific journals, including FEMS Microbiology Reviews, Microbial Cell Factories (Editor-in-Chief), Metabolic Brain Disease (Deputy-Chief-Editor), Plasmid, Scientific Reports (Senior Editor), and Acta Biochimica Polonica (Editor-in-Chief).

Stefan Tyski graduated from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw, obtaining a M.Sc. degree in biology in the field of biochemistry in 1976. He started scientific work in 1977 at the Department of Bacteriology of the National Institute of Hygiene, dealing with research on staphylococci and the extracellular factors produced by them, as well as staphylococcal infections. In 1982 he obtained the PhD degree in natural sciences. In the years 1983-1985 he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Department of Physiological Chemistry, Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, New Jersey, United States. In 1987-1991 he cooperated with the Karolinska Institute and the National Bacteriological Laboratory, Stockholm, Sweden, completing series of several short visits and conducting serological tests. He was awarded the degree of habilitated doctor of medical sciences in the field of medical biology - medical microbiology in 1992. He has been working in the National Medicines Institute since 1997. In the years 1998-2010 he was a member of the Standardization Committee No. 269 for disinfection and antisepsis of the Polish Committee for Standardization. In 2001, started a cooperation, which is still ongoing, with the Polish Pharmacopoeia Commission, currently as vice-chairman. In 2003 he was elected to the Expert Group No. 1 of the European Pharmacopoeia (microbiology). In 2003, the President of the Republic of Poland awarded him with the academic title of Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In the period 2006-2022 he worked at the Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology of the Medical University of Warsaw. He published over 250 scientific papers and led 8 national research projects. He promoted 8 PhD theses and organized 8 nationwide scientific and training conferences on pharmaceutical microbiology. In 2016, he was elected the President of the Polish Society of Microbiologists and is currently serving his second term in the office. His scientific interests focus mainly on: investigation of bacterial resistance mechanisms to antibiotics, chemotherapeutics, antiseptic, disinfecting and preservative agents: analysis by chemical and microbiological methods, the quality of medicinal products, medical devices, biocides, cosmetics, diet supplements (probiotics); investigation of antimicrobial activity of non-antibiotics, synthesised compounds, natural material extracts; analysis of antibiotics interactions in complex drugs.

Christopher Rao is the Head and Ray and Beverly Mentzer Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is also the Deputy Director for the Energy & Biosciences Institute and a member of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation. He received his B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Prior to beginning his career at Illinois, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Rao received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2007, the High Impact Paper Award from the International Federation of Automatic Control in 2010, Helen Corley Petit Scholar from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2011, the Outstanding Young Research Award from the Computing and Systems Technology Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2012, the Dean's Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Engineering in 2014, and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the School of Chemical Sciences at Illinois in 2008 and 2023. His research program focuses on 1) discovering how microorganisms sense and respond to their environment and 2) engineering microorganisms to produces fuels and valued-added chemicals from plant biomass.

Ann-Katrin Llaren's research field and interest lie with zoonotic disease, and my expertise is the epidemiology of zoonotic food- and environmentally borne bacteria in general, and Campylobacter jejuni in particular. Using molecular typing of whole or parts of bacterial DNA to provide knowledge on the epidemiology of campylobacteriosis is both fun and rewarding. My post-doctoral fellowship has focused on tasks within the project entitled "INNUENDO: a novel cross-sectorial platform for the integration of genomics in surveillance of food-borne pathogens" funded by European Food Safety Agency. The overall objective of our proposal is to deliver a standardized, cross-sectorial framework of bacterial whole-genome sequencing integration in routine surveillance and epidemiological investigations for reducing the disease burden of epidemic and sporadic food-borne zoonotic infections. The project ended in July 2018 (https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/sp.efsa.2018.EN-1498). Currently, I am involved in several projects in the interseption between animals, the environment, and human health, all within the one health paradigm. I am still applying microbial genomics to answer research questions on prevalence, transmission, and phenotypic adaptation of for instance Bacillus cereus, the composition of bacterial biofilms on microplastics in the environment.

Jan Potempa earned his PhD (1982) and DSc (habilitation, 1993) in Biochemistry from Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. He holds a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the University of Lund (Sweden, 2012) and the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands, 2021). Prof. Potempa maintains a teaching and research position at Jagiellonian University, where he is a Research Professor (since 2005) and head of the Department of Microbiology (since 1999). Concurrently he is affiliated with the University of Louisville Dental School as a Full Professor and Distinguished Academic Scholar. He received the most prestigious awards for scientific achievements in Poland, Foundation for Polish Science Prize (2011) and the Heisig Award (2021) for the discovery and characterization of gingipains as virulence factors and targets for drug development in treating periodontitis and gingipains role in the pathology of Alzheimer Disease, respectively. Current Prof. Potempa's investigations are focused on virulence factors of bacterial pathogens that play important roles in the dysregulation of several physiological pathways and evasion of host immunity, especially in the context of periodontitis and associated diseases. To date, Prof. Potempa has contributed to 510 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 95 reviews and book chapters cited >25,000 times (Web of Science, h-index = 80). According to the https://research.com/ webpage, Prof. Potempa is ranked 399 (Worldwide) and 195 (USA) among the best researchers in the field of Microbiology and is among the World's top 2% on Scientists List published by Stanford University, together with the publishing house Elsevier and SciTech Strategies (https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/4 )