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Dr. Lapanje has a degree in biology and a PhD in Microbiology. He is the PI of the colloid biology group at Jožef Stefan Instiute, with more than 15 years of experience in environmental micorbiology and biotechnology. He has extended his expertise with training in phycial chemistry and colloid physics and has been involved in several national and international projects (FP7, H2020, Era). Curretly, he is the SURFBIO project coordinator and is establishing colloid biolgy as a new interdisciplinary field, connecting colloid chemistry and physics with biology and microbiolgy, genetics and biotechnology.

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Dr. Rocío Barros has a degree in Biology and a PhD in Environmental Science. She leads the ICCRAM-Environment, Sustainability and Toxicology Research Group at the University of Burgos, with about 15 researchers. Since 2005 she has been involved in more than 20 European projects (FP6, FP7 and H2020) mainly related to sustainability, environmental technologies and biotechnology. 2013-2016 she worked as a researcher in ACCIONA in the Materials Group of the R&D Technological Center and since 2016 she is part of the University of Burgos-ICCRAM. Currently, she is the Project Coordinator of BIOTEC-GREENER Project “InteGRated systems for Effective ENvironmEntal Remediation'' and principal investigator of SURFBIO “Innovation Hub for Surface and Colloid Biology Research” and BIOSYSMO “BIOremediation systems exploiting SYnergieS for improved removal of Mixed pOllutants”.

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Master's degree in Policy Analysis from University of Ljubljana. Alenka Mubi communicates nature-based solutions for Limnos Ltd.

She started her career in innovation and entrepreneurship at various national institutions for economic development, innovation and start-up support. Lately she focuses on stakeholder coordination and customer relations for application of nature-based solutions in wastewater management, standing water body protection and management; and pollution mitigation.

She is a deputy president of Global Water Partnership of Slovenia.

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Dr. Borràs holds a Degree in Environmental Sciences (2005) and a PhD in Environmental Science and Technology (2011) by the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research experience has focused on environmental biotechnology in projects related to bioremediation, waste valorization and Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (METs). His recent professional career has been focussed on the execution and management of METs projects for energy/nutrient recovery, water treatment, pollution abatement and CO2 conversion in several international and national R&D projects. He has participated in different conferences and published peer-reviewed papers in international journals. Also, he has been assistant professor in the Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Currently he works as Area Manager in the group of Microbial and Electrochemical Technologies in the Circular Economy Department.

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Full Professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece, department of Agricultural Policy. Research interest in Food and European Policy and analysis, Rural Development, Agricultural Marketing and Investment Analysis, and International Trade inter-industry analysis with a specialization in Input-Output models. Has published more than 300 referred articles in international journals, collective volumes, and proceedings, having been cited more than 2000 times. He has contributed to international and Greek conferences and served as a referee to several journals, books, collected volumes etc. He is managing editor and participates in editorial boards of several scientific journals. His experience is broadened by his employment as a manager in an enterprise processing agricultural products and by his employment at the Ministry of Agriculture for several years. He has supervised more than 20 PhD students and is an expert in impact and policy analysis and has served in several relevant EU and National Food Policy Committees. He also served for six years as a member of the Board of the European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE). Professor Mattas has an extensive experience in Research projects, as he has successfully undertaken the roles of Scientific and Project Coordinator in more than 30 European Research Projects (currently coordinator of a Horizon 2020 Biodiversity project: BIOVALUE https://www.biovalue-project.eu/).

Faisant fonction: Vice-President of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Berlin.

Research interest: Fungal biofilms on rocks and materials, Black fungi, Genetics-based experimental geomicrobiology and material sciences, Expertise in microbiological cultural heritage research: field & lab work.

Education. 2006: Habilitation in Microbiology (Oldenburg University, Germany). 1992-1997: Dr. rer. nat. in Mycology (Komarov Botanical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St., Russia). 1985-1991: Diplom in Biology / Biophysics (honours, St. Petersburg State University, Russia).

Total Citations: 4189. H-index: 37.

Experience. Since 2009: Full Professor, Freie Universität Berlin & BAM.

2007-2009: Feodor-Lynen-Fellow Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, University of Geneva, Switzerland. 2001: Postdoctoral Fellow, Duke University, NC, USA. 2000-2007: Assistant Researcher, Geomicrobiology, Institute of Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Oldenburg University. 1998-1999: Postdoctoral Fellow, Geomicrobiology, ICBM, Oldenburg. 1992-1997: Joint PhD program between Komarov Botanical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), St. Petersburg, Russia and ICBM, Oldenburg, Germany.

Dr. Aparicio has a PhD in physical chemistry, in the fields of thermodynamics and theoretical chemistry. He is a full Professor of Physical Chemistry at UBU. He is an expert in thermophysical and molecular modelling studies for the characterization and development of new materials. He has published 190 papers in refereed journals and several book chapters (h-index=33, i-10 index=96, total citations=4043). He is Editor-in-chief of Physical Chemistry Journal and member of the Editorial Board of several journals. ICCRAM collaborator in the Computational Simulation research area. In this line he has led H2020 projects (H2020-MSCA-RISE-2016-CO2MPRISE, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2016-DRYNET). He is collaborating in DIAGONAL project “Development and scaled Implementation of sAfe by design tools and Guidelines for multicOmponent aNd hArn nanomateriaLs” leading the computational research in surface-cell interaction. He also maintains an interesting network with Qatar Foundation as consultant and co-IP in several research projects. Also, he is leader and member of the group AdF (Analysis and Modelling of Materials) with 10 current members with interdisciplinary backgrounds in chemistry, physics and chemical engineering within the university.

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Dr. Lila Otero earned her PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Arizona (USA). She developed her doctoral thesis on the topic of environmental impacts of engineered nanoparticles. She worked as postdoctoral researcher at the University of Brighton (UK) and Ghent University (Belgium), both developing and managing EU research projects studying (bio)processes for the removal and recovery of metals, metalloids and micronutrients from polluted water. In 2019 she joined IDENER as a researcher in the area of biotechnology. Current projects include the recently started Horizon Europe BIOSYSMO project, which she coordinates and where computational tools are applied for the design of biodegradative communities. She is author or co-author of 19 scientific articles in international journals.

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Dr. Rumbo has a degree in Biology, and a PhD in Health Sciences, in the field of Microbiology. He currently coordinates the Toxicology Research Line at University of Burgos in ICCRAM. He has a strong background in the study of several fields related with nosocomial pathogens, including mechanisms of multidrug resistance, gene transfer and virulence. His main research activities are related with the analysis of the toxicity and biocompatibility of new materials and nanoparticles using human cell lines as model organisms, and in the study of the antimicrobial activity of new compounds. As a result of his scientific career, several research articles were published in international journals (24), and he participated in more than 10 research projects, at national and international level. He is the scientific coordinator of DIAGONAL “Development and scaled Implementation of sAfe by design tools and Guidelines for multicOmponent aNd hArn nanomateriaLs” and he is one of the PI of BIOTEC-GREENER Project “InteGRated systems for Effective ENvironmEntal Remediation'' and BIOSYSMO “BIOremediation systems exploiting SYnergieS for improved removal of Mixed pOllutants”.

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Dr. Dimkić graduated in Molecular Biology and Physiology in 2010, while a Ph.D. degree was obtained in 2015 at the Faculty of Biology University of Belgrade (FBUB) in the field of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. From 2016 to 2021, he was a post-doc research fellow for short and long visits in several laboratories (Institute of Nutritional Science, Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany; Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine University of Rijeka, Croatia; International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology – ICGEB, Trieste, Italy). Since 2021, Dr. Dimkić is a Group Leader of the Microbial Biotechnology group at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (FBUB), and his current interest is focused on the development of microbial solutions for sustainable agriculture. His team has pivotal research in Serbia using beneficial bacteria and they have complementary expertise in the biotechnological background and collaboration with industrial partners. As a projects leader, he participated in international, bilateral, and national projects, including the leadership of several R&D sector projects for the companies' and other institutions' needs, and a founder of a start-up company BioCombact. He has published 140 bibliographic records, including 57 scientific papers (> 1000 citations, Hirsch index 17, cumulative IF >150).

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Tomaž Lutman is a technology manager at the Center for Technology Transfer and Innovation at the Jožef Stefan Institute. He has a MSc in biochemistry, University of Ljubljana, and received additional education at the Technical University of Munich. After graduating, he joined the Jožef Stefan Institute in 2016. He assists the institute's researchers in the management of intellectual property and its commercialization. He advises mainly on the management of inventions that are protected in the form of a patent. He checks the novelty and inventiveness of inventions and helps to prepare a patent application with the help of a patent attorney and advises on the next steps in the recognition of a patent. He also takes care of connecting the institute with industrial partners. In 2019, he attended a 10-day course in intellectual property organized by the Center for International Intellectual Property Studies, Strasbourg. Between 2017 and 2020, he worked on the KETGATE project, which connected Central European companies with research organizations. In recent years he is actively engaged with national and EU R&D project management.

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Dr. Stefan Schymura studied chemistry at the University of Stuttgart and holds PhD degree in Natural Sciences from the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. His early research career focussed on the basic science of liquid crystalline carbon nanotube composites, while he now is involved in research concerning the environmental fate of nanoparticles. One focus of his work is the use of radiolabelling approaches for reliable detection of nanomaterials in complex media. Additionally, he has experience in the use of interferometric microscopy for the analysis of surface reactivity of materials. Currently he is heading a junior research group tasked with nanosafety research at the Institute of Resource Ecology of HZDR at the Research Site Leipzig.

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Dr. Bogdan Parakhonskiy received his PhD in physics from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia in 2009. He held a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Trento, Italy. After this, he worked as a group leader in the theranostic laboratory at Saratov State University, Russia. Since 2015 he has been a holder of a prestigious FWO (Flanders Research Foundation) fellowship at Ghent University, Belgium.

His current research interest is in the intersection of material science and chemical engineering for biological application and the possible application of machine learning and data science methods in this area.

His research interests focus on the design and modification of composite scaffolds and colloidal particles. He pioneers development carriers such as calcium carbonate particles, hydrogel matrices, and containers and their application as sensors, contrast agents, controlled release delivery systems and ceramic particle-cell interaction for tissue engineering.

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Nada Verdel has a degree and masters in chemical engineering and a PhD in Biology. She developed her doctoral thesis on the topic of physico-chemical properties of epitaxially imprinted aqueous solutions. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia, on a project aimed to develop efficient treatment of polluted water from paper industry. Together with the Colloid biology group at Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia, she successfully developed pilot-scale treatment using immobilised selected bacteria that are native to the paper-mill environments. Currently, she is focused on the degradation of lignin for its further application as a component of phenolic resins and on the development of new types of phenolic resins.

Dr. Nives Ogrinc is also head of the Organic Biogeochemistry Group and full professor at Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate school.

She is a professor of Ecotechnology. She received her PhD in Environmental Sciences from the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology University of Ljubljana in 1997. After completing a two-year NATO-postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Chemistry, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, where she studied mercury cycling in Canada as part of the METAALICUS project, she returned to Slovenia to work in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Jožef Stefan Institute. Her research work is characterized by a distinctly interdisciplinary approach where she has advanced the science in stable isotopes of light and heavier elements in various fields of research, including in food authenticity and traceability. Her bibliography includes 180 original papers that have been cited more than 4547 times, and she has an h-index of 38. Two patent applications have been obtained from the development of new, advanced food packaging material. The excellence of her work is also evident by her involvement in several national and international projects and invited lectures at international conferences and symposia. She is the coordinator of two EU projects: MSC ITN FoodTraNet and FishEUTrust. In 2019, she was awarded the prestigious “Zois award for outstanding achievements in the use of stable isotopes in interdisciplinary research”.

Herwig Bachmann is a principal scientist and leads the fermentation expertise group at NIZO, a contract research organisation in the Netherlands. He also holds a position at the VU University Amsterdam. Dr Bachmann investigates microbial physiology and metabolism in pure cultures and complex microbial consortia with a focus on optimising (food) fermentations. He has a strong interest in experimental evolution of microbes and the role of spatial structure on the evolutionary outcome. The use of dedicated protocols that allows to evolve cells without substrate competition (through culturing of cells in water in oil emulsions) lead to fundamental insights on yield- vs. rate-selection. He is working on trade-offs in fermentation processes and increasingly applies his fundamental interests for the improvement of plant-based food ingredients through fermentation.

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Dr. Tomaž Rijavec has a degree in biology and a PhD in biological Sciences, major Molecular Biology. He has been involved in several national an international projects (FP7, H2020, Era) dealing with the use of bacteria in biotechnology, remediation and medicine. Currently, he is focused on genetic and genomic characterization of bacteria in relation to their metabolic traits.

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Prof. Farias received her PhD in Physical chemistry from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE - Brazil), where she holds a full professor position since 2003. At Phonano Holding GmbH (4n), she focuses on innovations in nanotechnology and their applications via national and international research projects involving both Europe as well as Brazil. Her track-record involves more than 80 peer reviewed publications in the areas of material science, biophotonics and nanotechnology.

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Mr. Stingl received an MSc. in electrical engineering and an MBA from the Vienna University of Technology and the Vienna University of Economics and Business, respectively.

As a founding member of Femtolasers GmbH, he has contributed to the scientific and economic development of ultrashort pulse lasers since 1997. As a founding member of Phonano Holding GmbH (4n), he focuses on bringing innovations in nanotechnology to market since 2016, which includes the participation in and the coordination of national and international research projects.

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Dr. David Virant completed his PhD in molecular microbiology at the Max Planck Institute in Marburg. For the past three years he has been working as a Senior Scientist at Acies Bio, developing microbial technologies for the production of industrial chemicals, with a focus on CO2-based alternative feedstocks.

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Maria Suarez Diez studied physics and obtained her PhD in theoretical physics studying cosmological implications of high energy physis (2006). She moved to biology and worked as a post-doc in France (Ecole Polytechnique) where she started working in structural biology with applications in synthetic biology. At the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, in Germany, she applied her strong mathematical and physics background to tackle a broad range of biological systems (2009-2011). Since 2011, she works at Wageningen University & Research and in 2022 she became Full professor and Chair Systems and Synthetic Biology.

Currently she is one of the PI of SURFBIO project “Innovation Hub for Surface and Colloid Biology Research".

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Department of Environmental Protection, Slovenia

Background in microbiology molecular biology. Interested in the role of atmosphere as a dispersal medium and a habitat for microorganisms with a focus on adaptation of microorganisms for air dispersal for both pathogenic microorganisms as well as other environmental microorganisms. she is active in developing novel methods for air sampling in a combination with metagenomic analysis and developing laboratory scale micro-droplet reactors for controled observation of microorganisms in airborne state.

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After my study Life Science & Technology at Delft University of Technology I went to the VU Amsterdam to do my PhD under the supervision of Herwig Bachmann and Bas Teusink. During my PhD I studied microbial growth in compartmentalized environments. We used water-in-oil emulsions and microbeads to study how microorganisms interact with each other. We also explored how we can use laboratory evolution in compartmentalized environments to select mutants that are interesting in biotechnological applications. After my PhD I started as an assistant professor at Delft University of Technology, in the section of Industrial Microbiology. My research group focuses on understanding interactions between cells, strains and species, and the development of high-throughput screening and selection systems. We combine defined synthetic consortia, predictive models and laboratory experiments, to gain knowledge and insight that we use to improve biotechnological processes. In addition, I teach two BSc courses, one focused on the principles of microbial physiology and the other one on quantitative methods to evaluate the performance of industrial microorganisms.

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Professor Gleb Sukhorukov holds Chair in Biopolymers at School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Graduated from Department of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University and after postdoctoral positions at academia and indistry he started his independent research group at Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfeces in 2001 with help of Sofja Kovalevskaja Award of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation until he moved to QMUL in 2006.

He initiated research on layer-by-layer assembled polyelectrolyte capsules with most research outcome relevant to development of multifunctional drug delivery systems enabling encapsulation of various substances in capsules of defined size with triggered release induced by light, magnetic field and ultrasound. He was named among top-10 world known scientists of Russian origin by Forbes (Oct'2011). Gleb Sukhorukov served as visiting professor in IMRE, Singapore, Saratov State University (Honorary professor) and Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xian, China (Adjunct Professor).

Dr. Furlan has more than 10 years of experience in the field of proteomics and mass spectrometry (MS). She studied functional genomics at University of Trieste (IT) and worked as biochemist in Italy and Norway. She holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh (UK) and performed postdoctoral research at Radboud University (NL). After a brief parenthesis working in a biopharmaceutical company as a senior scientist in MS, she joined the department of Systems and Synthetic Biology at Wagningen University and Research (WUR, NL) where she works as a lecturer. At WUR she contributes to teaching activities and continues to work on proteomics and, more in general, omics data analysis.

PhD Microbiology 1990 at UAM. Postdoctoral stay at John Innes Institute 1990-1993. Assistant Professor, Associated Professor and Full Professor at UAM. Teaching activity in microbiology, plant biology and environmental biotechnology. Main research in plant-microbe interactions and biotechnological applications in agriculture and environmental protection. More than 65 peer reviewed publications. Research funded by Regional, National (Spain) and European Projects. Collaboration with industry in knowledge transfer and collaborative research. Ten PhD Thesis supervised. Currently participating in GREENER in microbiological tasks related with soil bioremediation. Tasks include characterization of the microbiome and metagenome of polluted soil sites; isolation of bacteria and consortia to be used as inoculants; metagenomic and metatranscriptomics of consortia; construction and metagenomic characterization of synthetic communities (SynComs) for bioremediation; pilot scale and field scale bioremediation projects.

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Dr. sdgsg

Maria Suarez Diez studied physics and obtained her PhD in theoretical physics studying cosmological implications of high energy physis (2006). She moved to biology and worked as a post-doc in France (Ecole Polytechnique) where she started working in structural biology with applications in synthetic biology. At the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, in Germany, she applied her strong mathematical and physics background to tackle a broad range of biological systems (2009-2011). Since 2011, she works at Wageningen University & Research and in 2022 she became Full professor and Chair Systems and Synthetic Biology.

Currently she is one of the PI of SURFBIO project “Innovation Hub for Surface and Colloid Biology Research".

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Dr. Lapanje has a degree in biology and a PhD in Microbiology. He is the PI of the colloid biology group at Jožef Stefan Instiute, with more than 15 years of experience in environmental micorbiology and biotechnology. He has extended his expertise with training in phycial chemistry and colloid physics and has been involved in several national and international projects (FP7, H2020, Era). Curretly, he is the SURFBIO project coordinator and is establishing colloid biolgy as a new interdisciplinary field, connecting colloid chemistry and physics with biology and microbiolgy, genetics and biotechnology.

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Dr. Tomaž Rijavec has a degree in biology and a PhD in biological Sciences, major Molecular Biology. He has been involved in several national an international projects (FP7, H2020, Era) dealing with the use of bacteria in biotechnology, remediation and medicine. Currently, he is focused on genetic and genomic characterization of bacteria in relation to their metabolic traits.

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He obtained his BSc degree in Chemistry (1987), followed by a Licentiate Degree in Biochemical Sciences (1989) and a PhD in Biochemical Sciences (1994) from the University of La Plata (Argentina). He was appointed Associate Professor of Biotechnology at the University of Quilmes (Argentina) in 1994, and Research Fellow at the Microbial Physiology Group at the University of Amsterdam from 1995 to 1999. He joined the University of Surrey in 1999, where he is now a Professor of Systems Microbiology.

He has completed a BSc. in Bioscience at the University of Surrey in 2019, where he worked under Prof. Claudio Avignone-Rossa on the metabolic modelling of Streptomyces clavuligerus for antibiotics production. He has acquired a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at King’s College London in 2020, before completing a MSc. in Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He returned to Surrey in 2021 working under Prof. Avignone-Rossa as part of the GREENER project. His main tasks included setting up and maintenance of bio-electrochemical experiments, bioinformatics analyses and metabolic modelling of microbial communities. He has recently started as a PhD candidate working in collaboration with BASF on the metabolic modeling of Pseudomonas to improve the industrial production of a recombinant enzyme.