Prof Jacques Jupille is Leader of the group “Oxides in small dimensions” at Institut des Nanosciences de Paris. He’s since 2003 Senior scientist CNRS of 1st class. He’s working on the following research areas: Physical and chemical properties of surfaces and interfaces, from ultra-high-vacuum to ambient conditions, crystallographic and electronic structures, reactivity, catalytic activity, adhesion, wetting, hydration. Tools – Electron spectroscopies, near field microscopies (tunnel and atomic forces), vibrational spectroscopies (high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy), vacuum related techniques, synchrotron based techniques (x-ray diffraction and absorption edges), transmission electron microscopy.

Since 1979, he has been actively involved in the management and support of many societies and institutions including:

• 1979 – 1986 Member of Section “Inorganic chemistry, catalysis and surfaces” of Comité National of CNRS, Chemistry Department of CNRS
• 1982 – 1986 Member of the Council of the Chemistry Department of CNRS
• 1993 – 1997 Member of the Program Committee “Chemistry absorption” of LURE
• 1996 – Member of the “ Surface and Interfaces Section ” (Condensed Matter Division -  European Physical Society)
• 1996 – Member of the ECOSS (European Conference On Surface Science) Bureau
• 1996 – 2002 Member of the Program Committee “Solid state physics” of LURE.
• 1998 – Member de Board of Editors of Surface Review and Letters
• 1998 – 2004 Member of the Surface Science Division - International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications (IUVSTA)
• 1998 – Member of the Council of the French society of metallurgy and materials (SF2M)
• 2001 – Member of the SF2M bureau
• 2002 – 2006 Member of the Executive Committee of FEMS (Federation of European Societies of Materials)
• 2003 – 2006 President of French Federation of Materials (FFM)
• 2004 – 2008 Member of Section “Condensed Matter : organization and dynamics” of Comité National of CNRS, Physics Department of CNRS
• 2005 – 2008 Member of the expert panel of the Section “Catalysis, Electrochemistry, Inorganic Chemistry” for recruitment of Junior Scientists, Chemistry Department of CNRS
• 2005 – 2007 Vice-President of SF2M
• 2007 – President of SF2M

Prof. James M. Hill has received two five year fellowships from the Australian Research Council; an ARC Senior Research Fellowship in 1997 to work on Granular Materials, and an ARC Australian Professorial Fellowship in 2004 to work on Nanomechanics. Since 1983 he has received 13 major research awards, including ARC Large Grants, ARC Discovery Projects, National Research Fellowship, National Teaching Company Scheme. He has published five books, and almost 300 research publications in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Mechanics. He is the recipient of the 2008 ANZIAM medal for contributions to research and the Applied Mathematics discipline.

Prof. James M. Hill is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. He has been an Associate Editor since 1982 of the ANZIAM Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, which is published by the Australian Mathematical Society. His work has received international recognition through his appointment to the Editorial Boards of four international journals: Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, Journal of Applied Mathematics and the Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics, both published by Oxford University Press, Journal of Engineering Mathematics published by Kluwer Academic Press and Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids published by Sage Science Press.

Rodrigo Martins is full professor at FCT-NOVA- Portugal, President of the European Academy of Sciences; President of the International Union of Materials Research Societies; Full Professor at FCT-NOVA. Member of the:

• Scientific Council of the European Research Council.
• Portuguese Academy of Engineering.
• Portuguese Order of Engineers, OE.
• Board of Admission and Qualification of OE.

Rodrigo Martins is the founder and director of the Centre of Excellence in Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Processes of Uninova; leader of the Materials, Optoelectronics and Nanotechnologies group of I3N/CENIMAT and its sub-director; member of the nomination committee of the EIT KIC Raw Materials, Editor in Chief of the journal Discover Materials. He is expert in the field of advanced functional materials, nanotechnologies, microelectronics, transparent electronics (pioneer) and paper electronics (inventor), with more than:

- 1050 papers, from which 677 in the WoK

- 2 books; editing 8 books; 1 pedagogic text book in Portuguese (900 pages); book chapters 28.

- Patents: granted patents 43; 16 pending.
- Talks: about 600 talks, from which 100 as plenary/key note speakers, 200 as invited and 200 as regular in main international and national conferences, symposia and workshops.
- Posters: about 300 in main international and national conferences, symposia and workshops

He is Member of the:

• Steering Committee of European Technology Platform for Advanced Engineering Materials and Technologies, EuMat.
• Joint Innovation Centre for Advanced Material Sino-Portuguese.

Rodrigo Martins was decorated with the gold medal of merit and distinction by the Almada Municipality for his R&D achievements. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1997-7669: Webpage: https://cemop.uninova.pt/   Click here for more details. 

Silvia Giordani is full Professor Chair of Nanomaterials and Head of School of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University.  She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Miami, USA and carried out postdoctoral research at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland and at the University of Trieste, Italy.  In 2007 she received the prestigious President of Ireland Young Researcher Award and was a Research Assistant Professor at TCD from 2007 to 2013. In September 2013 she founded the new “Nano Carbon Materials” research lab at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and in December 2016 she was appointed Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry at the University of Turin, Italy. Her main research interests are in the design, synthesis, and characterization of a wide range of nanomaterials for applications in smart and responsive bio-related nanotechnologies. She has authored over 140 peer-reviewed publications in International journals from 2001 to date, including Chemistry Society Reviews, Nature Nanotechnology, PNAS, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano and J. Am. Chem. Soc. that collectively have received over 8,000 citations and her results have been highlighted in journals such as Science, Nature, and New Scientist. Prof. Giordani has also presented her work at numerous conferences around the world e.g. in United States, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, India, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and across most of Europe. She has served as the thesis/dissertation advisor or mentor to 43 undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral fellows. In 2012 she was awarded the L’Oréal UK & Ireland Fellowship For Women in Science and

in 2014 she has been invited to give a “Women in Science” Masterclass at the Royal Irish Academy.  In 2018 she was awarded the William Evans Fellowship from the University of Otago (New Zealand). She is Visiting Scientist to the Bio-Nano Institute at Toyo University (Japan). She is Associate Editor for Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology https://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/boardMembers/17167343 and for Frontiers in Chemistry - Supramolecular Chemistry. (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/sections/supramolecular-chemistry).

Prof. Jordi Arbiol graduated in Physics from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) in 1997, he went on to obtain his PhD (European Doctorate and PhD Extraordinary Award) in 2001 from this same institution in the field of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) applied to nanostructured materials. He was assistant professor at the UB. From 2009 to 2015 he was ICREA Professor and group leader at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC). He was President of the Spanish Microscopy Society (SME) (2017-2021) and held the position of vice-president from 2013 to 2017, having been a member of its Executive Board (2009-2021). In 2018 he was elected as Member of the Executive Board of the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy (IFSM) (2019-2026).
Since 2015 he has been ICREA Professor and leader of the Advanced Electron Nanoscopy Group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), CSIC and BIST. He is Scientific Supervisor of the Electron Microscopy Area at ICN2 and BIST, and also at the Electron Microscopy Center at the ALBA Synchrotron (EMCA). He has been one of the founding members of e-DREAM. He received the FWO Commemorative Medal (Flanders Research Foundation) in 2021, the BIST Ignite Award in 2018, the 2014 EU40 Materials Prize by the E-MRS, the 2014 EMS Outstanding Paper Award and was listed in the Top 40 under 40 Power List (2014) by The Analytical Scientist. As of May 2022 he has more than 415 peer-reviewed publications and more than 24700 citations (GoS) with h-index: 88 GoS (76 WoS).

Oliver G. Schmidt received the Dr.rer.nat. degree from TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany, in 1999. From 2007 to 2021, he was the Director of the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences, Leibniz IFW Dresden, Dresden, Germany. He holds a Full Professorship for Materials Systems for Nanoelectronics at Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany. He is an Adjunct Professor for Nanophysics at Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, and holds an Honorary Professorship at Fudan University, Shanghai, China. His interdisciplinary activities bridge across several research fields, ranging from flexible electronics and microrobotics to energy storage and nanophotonics.

Graduated in Physics from Queen Mary College London and obtained his Ph.D. on LB Superlattices of Porphyrins, with Richard Tredgold, at Lancaster University.  He subsequently held undertook postdoctoral work at Imperial College London and was a visiting Scientist at Eastman Kodak, Rochester.  In 1991 he moved to the School of Physics and Astronomy, at the University of Leeds where became Professor of Molecular and Nanoscale Physics in 2002. Since 2000 he has held posts as Deputy Director of the multidisciplinary Centre for Self-Organising Molecular Systems (SOMS), the Nano Manufacturing Institute and has been the head of the School of Physics & Astronomy.  He currently heads the Molecular and Nanoscale Physics group and is the Deputy Head of Physics and Astronomy.  He works on:

1. Micro- and Nanobubbles for the treatment of : Cancer, bacterial infection, as well as for oxygen delivery. In particular we have developed a microfluidics platfform for the delivery of therapeutic agents. We are also developing on chip systems for studying therapeutic delivery to organoids for pancreatic, colorectal and bladder models.
2. Single Cell Phenotyping.  Here we are using using molecular deformation, Raman spectroscopy and surface acoustic wave dielectrophoresis for the manipulation and characterisation of cells at the single cell level - in high throughput.
3. Nanomaterial. We are developing novel  nanomaterials for applications in photothermal treatment and imaging of cancer, Nanoenzymes, and plasmonics
4.  Lipid Membranes. We use model lipid membranes for developing our understading the membrane proteins, in particular we are interested in the fcGR.
5. Lipid Coated liquid crystal biosensors. We are using lipid coated LC droplets as self-amplification systems for the detection of bacterial infection

Prof. dr. Alexander Kros received his PhD in the group of Prof. Nolte at the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. After two years as a postdoctoral scholar in the group of Prof. Dave Tirrell at Caltech, USA, he became an assistant professor at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Since 2014 he is the chair of the Department of Supramolecular & Biomaterials Chemistry (SBC) within the chemical biology section of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry.

The research aim of SBC is to obtain curiosity-driven and fundamental molecular-level insight into transport phenomena in a range of topics, including targeted membrane fusion in an in vitro/in vivo environment, the transport of drugs across membranes and in supramolecular polymer derived biomaterials. To tackle these challenges, the SBC groups uses an interdisciplinary approach combining concepts from supramolecular and organic chemistry with molecular biology, liquid cell/cryo electron microscopy, in vivo studies in zebrafish and supported by theoretical modelling. Ever since the inception of the SBC group in 2014 it attracted talented scientists with external funding (3x ERC Starting grants; 2x VIDI, 1x VICI) supporting our long-term aim to obtain fundamental molecular-level insight into the origin of life.

Josep Samitier Martí is director of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Barcelona (Spain). Full professor at the Department of Electronic and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona (UB). Background in Physics (M.S. Degree in Physics, University of Barcelona and Ph.D. in Physics, University of Barcelona). Group leader of the Nanobioengineering group at IBEC and group leader in the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina (CIBERBBN).His main research areas are Biosensors, Microfluidics and Organ-on-chip.
Prof. Samitier has participated in and coordinated several European and national projects related to integrated microsystems and more recently to Nanobiotechnology devices. He has published more than 350 scientific articles, has directed 39 doctoral theses and is co-inventor of 6 licensed patents. He was deputy director of CIBER-BBN, vice-rector for International Policy at the University of Barcelona (UB), vice-rector for Innovation at the UB, acting rector of the UB, Spanish delegate to the Working Group on Biotechnology (OECD), director of the "Health Campus of Excellence" HUBc (UB), coordinator of the Master in Biomedical Engineering (UB-UPC)and founder member of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology in Health (EIT-HEALTH).
Currently, he is coordinator of the Spanish Nanomedicine Platform (NanomedSpain), scientific coordinator at national level of the Complementary Plan for Biotechnology Applied to Healthcare, which is boosted by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain together with 7 autonomous communities on new tools for precision medicine, president of the Catalan Association of Research Centres (Associació Catalana d'Entitats de Recerca - ACER) and a full member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC).
He was awarded the City of Barcelona prize in the Technological Innovation category in 2003 and the Narcís Monturiol medal in 2020

Pablo Taboada gained his PhD in 1999 at the Univ. of Santiago of Compostela (USC). His PhD experimental research (almost 3 years) was done at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences of the University of Manchester under the supervision of Prof. D. Attwood and Prof. M.N. Jones. During this time, he was involved in the analysis of the supramolecular assembly processes of drugs and protein-drug complexes and their biological implications, the seminal topic of the PhD thesis. After the PhD, he does three postdoctoral stays at USC, Univ. Manchester and Univ. College Dublin, where he got familiar (Manchester and USC) with the synthesis and characterization of new block copolymers and their potential as drug/gene delivery nanocarriers. At the end of 2001, he was recipient of a Ramón y Cajal fellowship by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the reincorporation in the National Science System for bringing new research lines to USC. In 2007, he became Associate Professor and in 2021 Full Professor. He has also been visiting professor in the Organic Materials Innovation Center (U. of Manchester) and in the Univ. of Guadalajara (México). He also collaborated in national and international projects and contracts with companies and institutions as Sanofi-Winthrop, Glaxo-SmithKline Beecham, Fundación Areces, CTAG, etc.

His current main research interests include the development of new hybrid multifunctional nanostructures with capabilities for controlled drug delivery, simultaneous diagnostic imaging and therapy (theranosis), (bio)sensing and energy applications. In parallel, PT research further focuses on the analysis of biological responses to the presence of nanomaterials in complex biological media and the study of self-assembly processes of (bio)polymers and the development of polymeric and hybrid scaffolds for regenerative medicine.  PT has co-authored 215 papers included in JCR (h-index 37, >4900 citations) and has participated as PI or team member in more than 44 national/international competitive research projects and contracts with different public and private institutions, and 3 patents. He has imparted more than 35 invited talks in conferences and presented more than 160 works (oral and poster contributions) to different national /international congresses. He has supervised 19 PhD thesis (other 11 on-going), 18 MSc thesis and different Final Year Degree Research Works. He has also imparted seminars in different academic institutions. He is also reviewer of more than 40 journals; referee of different national and international agencies (AEI, ANEP, R&D Agency of Andalucía, Poland, Georgia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Ministries of Science of Argentina and Uruguay); member of the editorial board of several journals (Frontiers of Bioscience, Pharmaceutics, Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology); and recipient of the Excellence Emerging Researcher Grant in 2010 from the Galician Government.

Dr. Raul Arenal received his Ph.D. in Solid State Physics from Univ. Paris-Sud (Orsay, France, 2005) and in 2013, he obtained his Habilitation (HDR) also at this University (now, Paris-Saclay University). He joined the Electron Microscopy Center in Argonne National Lab. (ANL, USA) as post doctoral fellow. In 2007, he became research scientist (Chargé de Recherches) at the CNRS (France; LEM, ONERA-CNRS). From 2010 to 2011, he was visiting scientist (sabbatical position) at the Laboratorio de Microscopias Avanzadas (LMA) at the Instituto de Nanociencia de Aragon (INA) of the Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain). Since 2012, Dr. Arenal is on leave from the CNRS, and he is currently ARAID senior research scientist at the LMA, INMA, CSIC-U. Zaragoza. Since 2018, he is the Director of the TEM area of the LMA-INA. Dr. Arenal has published more than 200 papers in refereed journals (http://www.raularenal.com) and edited one book (Springer).
Arenal’s broad area of research interest lies in electron microscopy focused on materials science and nanoscience: TEM (EELS, HR(S)TEM, electron diffraction, electron tomography). These studies are mainly focused on the growth mechanism, structural and physical properties of low dimensional materials based on carbon, boron and nitrogen as well as other nano-structures (in particular, metallic nano-objects for plasmonic/photonic interest). Among his scientific activities, Dr. Arenal is the chair of the HeteroNanoCarb conference series (http://heteronanocarb.org) focused on graphene, NT and related 1D-2D nanomaterials

Albert van den Berg received his MSc in applied physics in 1983, and his PhD in 1988 both at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. From 1988-1993 he worked in Neuchatel, Switzerland, at the CSEM and the University (IMT) on miniaturized chemical sensors. In 2000 he was appointed as full professor on Miniaturized Systems for (Bio)Chemical Analysis in the faculty of Electrical Engineering and part of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology. In 1994 he initiated together with Prof. Bergveld the international MicroTAS conference series. He published over 500 peer reviewed publications (H=64 WoS, H=86 Google Scholar) a.o. in Science, Nature, PNAS, PRL, Angewandte, NanoLetters, ACS Nano etc, and from his group > 10 spin-off companies started. He received several honors and awards such two ERC Advanced (2008, 2015) and four ERC Proof of Concept (2011, 2013, 2016, 2020) grants, Simon Stevin award (engineering sciences, 2002), Spinoza prize (2009), Distinguished University Professor (Twente, 2010), Distinguished Professor (South China Normal University SNCU (China), 2012), Consulting Professor at Northwestern Polytechnic University NPU (China), 2017) and member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) (board member from 2011-2016). From 2014-2018 he was scientific director of the MIRA institute for Biomedical Engineering. In 2017 he became co-PI of the Max Planck - University of Twente Center for Complex Fluid Dynamics. In 2018 he became (co)director of MESA+ institute for Nanotechnology. He has been editor of Sensors and Actuators B, cofounding member of the editorial board of the RSC journal Lab on a Chip, founding member of EUROoCS, the European Organ on Chip Society and founding director of the CBMS, the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society. His current research interests are micro/nanofluidics and sensing for health and sustainability and organs on chip.

Giuseppe Maruccio (1978) is Full Professor in Physics of Matter (FIS/03) at the Dept. of Mathematics and Physics – University of Salento and head of the Omnics Research Group which comprises researchers with  different backgrounds from physics to life sciences  working in close collaboration to foster exploratory and seeding research in cross-disciplinary areas  with applications spanning from -onics (electronics, spintronics and magnonics) to -omics technologies (genomics, proteomics and cellomics). Omnics laboratories are the Italian node of the European Infrastructure on Magnetism (funded within ISABEL project, H2020-INFRADEV-2018-2020, Grant No. 871106 ).

GM graduated in Physics (magna cum laude; best student in Physics at Lecce University from its institution in 1967) in 2000 and got his PhD in 2004. In 2005, he worked in Wiesendanger group (Hamburg) on wavefunction mapping by spatially resolved dI/dV images. At only 28 years, he was coordinator of the EU-FP6-NEST-STREP project SpiDME on molecular spintronics and then he was successfully granted in other open competitions (UE, FIRB, PRIN and MAE projects), attracting also funds from external sources such as private companies (IBM, Ekuberg Pharma s.r.l., Sensichips). He led/participated in other EU projects: H2020-MSCA-NIGHT-ERN-Apulia and ERN-Apulia2 as coordinator, FP7-ICT-CP-MolArNet, H2020-ICT-Madia and H2020-INFRADEV-ISABEL as WP leader and/or scientific responsible for the Lecce node. Moreover, he coordinated the presentation of many EU proposals for cooperation and training actions (about 30, in many cases evaluated as eligible for funding). Moreover, he participated in writing large scale projects at the Institute level which allowed to buy advanced instrumentation.

In 2010 he was Chair of the International conference “Trends in Spintronics and Nanomagnetism”, with the participation of Prof. Albert Fert, father of spintronics and Nobel Prize in Physics 2007, and Guest Editor of the conference proceedings (J. Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 292). G. Maruccio is author of more than 130 publications and 4 patents in addition to several invited contributions at international conferences, institutions and PhD schools (h-index 25, citations >2000). He is Member of the Editorial Board of J. of. Sensors (Hindawi, 2018 Impact Factor 2.024, CiteScore 1.99), MDPI Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220, Impact Factor 3.031, Q1 in the category of ‘Instruments & Instrumentation’, Q2 in ‘Chemistry, Analytical’ and Q2 in the ‘Electrochemistry’), MDPI Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X, Impact Factor: 2.426) and Review Editor in Nanobiotechnology, part of the journal(s) Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences (Impact Factor 3.565 | CiteScore 3.55), Bioengineering and Biotechnology (Impact Factor 5.122 | CiteScore 4.04) and Materials. He was referee for prestigious journals (Science, Nature Nanotechnology, Phys. Rev. Lett., Lab on a chip, Nano Letters, ACS Nano, J. Am. Chem. Soc., …) and funding agencies (EU-FP7, EU-H2020, ERC, MIUR, Israel Science Foundation, TWAS) and scientific evaluation agencies (ANVUR).

In 2013, along with some Department colleagues, he created the dissemination journal Ithaca (http://ithaca.unisalento.it/, e-ISSN: 228 2-8079). In 2011-2012, he was member of the Governing Board of CNR-Nano-NNL, delegated for stimulating and strengthening internal and external scientific collaborations, until abolition of the board with the change of local director. From 2014 to 2019, he was Research Delegate for the Rector for the University of Salento, taking responsibilities for Fund Raising, Research evaluation (VQR and SUA-RD campaigns), Dissemination events (e.g. the organization of the local events for the European Researcher Night), Research Exploitation Activities (as the reference for the Industrial Liason Office of Apulia Region). In 2016, he was awarded with the Excellence Award, City of Lecce. In 2017, he was part of a Working Group (made of four Research Delegates) within CRUI (The Conference of Italian University Rectors) for the preparation of the Position Paper of Italian Universities as midterm review for H2020 and toward FP9. From 2016 to 2019, he was Security Responsible (Preposto) for the Characterization Facility at CNR-Nanotec.

Dr. Xavier Fernàndez-Busquets has a background training in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from where he has explored biomolecular interactions in a number of models: histone-DNA association, glycosaminoglycan-based cell adhesion, amyloidogenesis in neurological disorders, and enzyme-substrate interactions at the single-molecule level, among others. His current research activity focuses on the design of nanosensors for the biodiscovery of new antimalarials and on the engineering of nanovectors for drug delivery. He has developed his career in several research centers, among which the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Ciba-Geigy AG (Basel, Switzerland), the Friedrich Miescher Institute (Basel), the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (US), the Universitat de Barcelona, the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia and the Barcelona Center for International Health Research. He is leading ISGlobal's Nanomalaria Group, a joint unit participated by the last two institutions.

Santiago Gómez-Ruiz (1978, Toledo, Spain) received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (Spain) (1996-2001). Then, he joined the Rey Juan Carlos University as Assistant Professor (Profesor Ayudante de Escuela Universitaria) at ESCET.  

In 2003, he did a predoctoral stay at laboratory of Prof. Hey-Hawkins at Leipzig University (Germany) as "Marie Curie Training Site Fellow" and in December 2004, he finished his Ph.D. thesis focused on the synthesis and catalytic properties of novel metallocene complexes "Design and Applications of Novel Group 4 and 5 Metallocene Complexes" with the highest qualification ("Summa Cum Laude") and the European Diploma. He was awarded a new position in the URJC (Profesor Ayudante Doctor) in 2005. He has also worked in a project for knowledge transfer with the company Repsol.

He obtained one of the most prestigious postdoctoral research fellowship from the renowned Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation (2006-2007). During that time he worked in the field of P-Chemistry publishing several articles of high impact.

In December 2007 got back to URJC and started a new research topic based on the design and preparation of novel metallodrugs and nanostructured materials with biological applications against cancer. In August 2009 he was awarded as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry (Profesor Titular de Universidad)  and since February 2020 he is Full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry (Catedrático de Universidad).

He is currently leading other different research topics focused on the synthesis of nanostructured materials with angiogenic, antibacterial or antineurodegenerative applications and the preparation of novel advanced materials with catalytic and photocatalytic applications in environment or energy. He has published important contributions in journals of high impact and has contributed as plenary or invited speaker in prestigious international conferences. 

Starting from 2001, he has published over 175 research papers, 2 patents, has participated in more than 20 research projects and has been principal investigator of a competitive Exchange Research Project with University of Leipzig funded by DAAD and IP of 3 projects of the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICIN-AEI, Spain).

He has also supervised 6 PhD students, 6 MSc. students and several exchange predoctoral or postdoct researchers. He collaborates with several groups worldwide. In addition, he has been principal investigator of several research projects for knowledge transfer with Chevron Phillips Chemical.

Antonella Macagnano is a senior research scientist at the National Research Council (CNR) (since 2001). She graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Lecce, Lecce, Italy, in 1993 and obtained a professional degree as Biologist in 1994. She got her Ph.D. in Sciences, Technologies and Biotechnologies for Sustainability from University of Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy (2020). Mainly, her research activities have concerned the study, design, characterisation and optimisation of chemical (nanostructured electrospun polymers and ceramics, metallo-porphyrins, cavitands and metallo-oligomers) and biological membranes (oligopeptides, bio-polymers) for selective interactions with both gases and volatile organic compounds. Since 2008, she has been the leader of a synergic group of researchers cooperating into a CNR job-order called “Bio-inspired sensor systems and technologies for space and human health safety” within the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR) in Rome. She has been involved in several international and national research projects focused on the design, improvement and implementation of sensor devices for health, environment and agri-food industries. Currently she is conducting her research activity, within Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research (IIA-CNR) in Rome.

Dr Jean Ebothé, PhD, DSci of Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg, France.

Distinguished Professor in Material Sciences and Physics of URCA, France.

Chair of Material Sciences, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Technical Institute of Troyes.

Head of Research team “Physics of Interfaces and Nanostructured Material thin films”.

Past Member of National Council of French Universities (CNU)-Section 28.

Officer of Excellency French National Order of Merit “Ordre des Palmes Académiques”.

Past Member of European Material Research Society.

Fellow Member of NANOSMAT SOCIETY.

Prof. Gavioli obtained his PhD. in Physics in 1997 working on metal/semiconductor interfaces. His post-doc experience at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (TN, USA) and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne was centered on 2D systems. In the 2001-2013 period, he worked as tenure track researcher at the Università Cattolica on different subjects:

• Alkali metals on semiconductors
• Organic molecules and fullerenes on vicinal metal surfaces
• Carbon based nanostructured systems
• Self assembled metal clusters on titanium oxide templates
• Synthesis of nanomaterials by non thermal laser ablation

He became professor in 2014, and his research interested moved to the synthesis and characterization of nanogranular materials. In particular, the research lines are dealing with:

• Mechanical properties of nanogranular materials
• nanomaterials for catalysis, photocatalysis, sensors
• Antibacterial and antivirus materials

He is the founder and deputy director of the “International Doctoral Program in Science”, established in 2016 among the Università Cattolica, KU Leuven (Belgium), the University of Notre Dame (Indi-ana, USA) and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (Chile).

Professor Yajun Yan received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biochemical Engineering from Beijing University of Chemical Technology in 1999 and 2002 respectively. He then obtained his PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 2010, he has been a faculty member at the University of Georgia, where he was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2015 and to full Professor in 2019.

Professor Yajun Yan has a broad academic background in Chemical and Biological Engineering. Over the past 20 years, his research has focused mainly on Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering. He is dedicated to developing microbial and enzymatic methods for efficient production of biofuels, bulk and fine chemicals, natural products, and drug-active molecules. His research projects cover multiple disciplines, including Biochemistry, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Protein Engineering, Metabolic Engineering, and the principles and techniques of Synthetic Biology.

To date, Professor Yajun Yan has published over 110 academic papers in prestigious journals in his field, such as Nature Biotechnology, Nature Communications, PNAS, Trends in Biotechnology, Biotechnology Advances, Metabolic Engineering, Green Chemistry, ACS Synthetic Biology, etc. He has also co-authored three academic books and holds 17 patents in multiple countries including the US, China, and Canada.

Emmanuelle Lacaze completed her PHD in 1991 at University Denis Diderot - Paris. She obtained a position of researcher of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), also in 1991, to start her research at the Groupe de Physique des Solides which later became the Institute des Nano-Sciences de Paris. Her research focusses on organic materials, in particular liquid crystals and their topological defects, on nanoparticles for their optical properties and on composite materials. For the latter, she is trying to understand how the combination of organic materials and nanoparticles can not only combine the properties of both materials, but also bring out entirely new properties. She is an experimentalist and mainly uses optical microscopy and optical spectroscopies combined with measurements in synchrotron radiation facilities. She is now research director at CNRS. She has been in charge of the Very Large Infrastructures at the Physics Institute of CNRS between 2017 and 2020.

Prof. Biana Godin earned her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the School of Pharmacy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. During her Ph.D. studies, Dr. Godin focused on designing a non-invasive treatment for the hard-to-treat deep skin infections and on nasal delivery of proteins. She completed postdoctoral fellowship in Cancer Nanotechnology at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston. Her postdoctoral research focused on design and evaluation of injectable nanotherapies for cancer treatment and imaging. Dr. Godin is a Scientist in the Department of Nanomedicine at Houston Methodist Research Institute. Current research in Dr. Godin's lab, funded by federal, state and foundation grants, focuses on developing physiologically relevant in vitro and in vivo disease models and exploiting physical and biological mechanisms to improve currently available therapeutic options in oncology, infectious diseases and obstetrics. Dr. Godin is a translational scientist on the interception of biological and physical sciences, with the ultimate goal of bringing advanced and safe therapies and therapy personalization methods into the clinic to benefit patients. Dr. Godin has > 200 scientific publications, received multiple federal and foundation-based grants and participates in national and international grant review panels. She holds academic positions at the Department of Nanomedicine and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Institute of Academic Medicine, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Cancer Center Houston Methodist Hospital, as well as Adjunct Faculty at the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center School of Medicine and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M.

After earning his Ph.D in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Italy, in 2007, Dr Filice spent 14 years as postdoc Researcher in prestigious Public, Academic and Private Research Centers within Italy (University of Pavia-UNIPV), France (French National Centre for Scientific Research-CNRS), Brazil (São Paulo State University-UNESP) and Spain (Spanish National Research Council-CSIC and Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research-CNIC). Awarded with the highly competitive 'Research Talent Attraction' excellence program (Spain), in 2018, he joined the Dept. of Chemistry in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain (UCM) where he founded and is actually codirecting the 'Nanobiotechnology for Life Sciences' official group. In 2021, he was appointed permanent Associate Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy (UCM) and he was awarded the prestigious 'Certificate of Excellence in Investigation I3' issued by the Spanish Ministry of University. He also belongs to the ‘Spanish Biomedical Research Networking Center for Respiratory Diseases’ (CIBERES) and he is visiting scientist at the Unit of Microscopy and Dynamic Imaging of ‘Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research’ (CNIC).

The research activity of Dr. Filice is characterized by a strong multidisciplinary approach that ranges within Physical and Bioorganic Chemistry, Enzymology, Nanobiotechnology, Nanomedicine, Biosensing, Protein Chemistry or Biomedical Molecular Imaging. He is mainly focused on the fine design and controlled synthesis of novel multifunctional hybrid nanochimers as result of the combination of site-selective engineered biomolecules (e.g. peptides, proteins, antibodies or oligonucleotides) together with a wide set of customized functional nanomaterials. These nanobiohybrids showed high usefulness as next-generation platforms in advanced biosensing and nanocatalysis as well as in nanomedicine as advanced theranostic (therapeutic+diagnostic) tools for biomedical applications in cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory and immune-based diseases.

Ibrahim Abdulhalim is a professor in the Department of Electrooptic Engineering at Ben Gurion University. He has worked in research and development in a variety of academic institutions and industrial companies. From August 1988 till May 1991, he was a research associate within the Optoelectronic Computing Systems Center in the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA where he worked on ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulators. During July 1991 till July 1993 he was a research fellow in the Optoelectronics Research Center of Southampton University, England, working on fiber acousto-optic modulators for Q-switching and Mode-locking of fiber lasers. During 2000-2001 he was with the Thin Films Center of the University of Western Scotland as a researcher and lecturer. Among the companies he worked for are KLA-Tencor and Nova measuring instruments working in optical metrology systems for the inspection of the fabrication processes in the microelectronics industry and in GWS-Photonics working on guided wave liquid crystal devices for the optical telecommunications. Since October 2005 he joined the Department of Electrooptic Engineering at Ben Gurion University. His current research activities involve liquid crystal devices, nanophotonic and plasmonic structures for biosensing, improved biomedical optical imaging techniques such as spectropolarimetric imaging and full field optical coherence tomography using liquid crystal devices. Prof. Abdulhalim has published over 120 journal articles, 60 conference proceedings papers, 10 book chapters, coauthored 1 book titled Integrated Nanophotonic Devices (Micro and Nano Technologies), and has 10 patents. He became a fellow of the Institute of Physics, UK in 2004 and SPIE fellow in 2010. He is an associate editor of the SPIE Journal of NanoPhotonics and for the Journal of Physics Express. Prof. Abdulhalim is acting as the head of Department of Electrooptic Engineering since 2007.

Scientist in environmental geochemistry, I obtained my PhD in 2001 at the LEM (Nancy, France) on the links between the macroscopic properties of clays and their structural organization. I then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the ETHZ (Zürich, Switzerland) where I focused on heavy metal pollution in soils. In 2003, I joined the team of scientists of the LUCIA beamline at SOLEIL synchrotron, dedicated to X-ray fluorescence and absorption (micro) spectroscopy in the soft X-ray domain. I became its manager in 2013. I continue my research work oriented to the transfer of metallic contaminants in the different compartments of the critical zone, in relation with the structural properties of the carrier.

Claudia Giachino is full professor of Technical Sciences in Laboratory Medicine and coordinator of the Translational Research Center for Innovative Medicine at the University of Turin, Italy. She’s internationally recognised as an expert in nano-biotechnology and stem cell biology. Prof. Giachino received the Nanomedicine Award in 2017, the first Entrepreneurship prize for Regenerative approaches in Porto, Portugal in 2019, and, together with her interdisciplinary team, several grants for innovative projects in the cardiovascular field. Her translational research is reflected in several national and international collaborations, awards and honours for her capacity to bring basic research results to society, generating impact.