Teresa Rubio-Tomás

Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas

Teresa received her Bachelor’s and Master’s in degree Biology and Biomedical Research respectively from the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain. During her PhD she studied the epigenetic regulation of liver cancer as part of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Initial Training Network. Following this, she studied liver diseases, cell plasticity, aging and cellular senescence at IDIBAPS Research Centre in Barcelona. In the meantime, she completed a second Master’s in the field of Education. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Nektarios Tavernarakis laboratory at Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas in Greece.

Ana I. Álvarez-Mercado

University of Granada (Spain), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

With a degree in Chemistry, Ana started her research career at Biochemistry of Nutrition Therapeutic Implication, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, at University of Granada. She studied the human umbilical cord stem cell therapy for the treatment of experimental liver disease in rats during her doctoral dissertation. She pursued her post-doctoral research at University of Granada, Spain. Her research has mainly been focused on the search for pharmacological and surgical strategies for the treatment of metabolic diseases and lately on the influence of microbiota and diet in the pathophysiology of these diseases and in cancer.  

Ascensión Rueda Robles

Campus Cartuja University of Granada, Department of Nutrition and Bromatology

Dr. Rueda holds a degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics (2009), a degree in Food Science and Technology (2011). She obtained her PhD in Human Nutrition from the University of Granada in 2015. Subsequently, she continued to work at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), a leading Spanish research center on simulated static digestion processes and dietary components. She received funds from European Social Found to work at the Institute of Nutrition “José Mataix.” She later worked with CTS-461 Research group (BioNIT) of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology II at the University of Granada. She is currently working at Department of Nutrition and Bromatology at the University of Granada.

Ruben Lopez-Aladid

University of Barcelona

Ruben works on infections and respiratory diseases at the Hospital Barcelona Clinic. Throughout his scientific career, he has worked in different fields. He has worked on gastrointestinal diseases with focus on ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease at IDIBAPS group. Further, he worked at Hospital clinic as microbiologist and virologist with primary focus primarily on Herpesvirus, resistance to antivirals in certain viruses and in transplanted and immunosuppressed patients. He has specialization in the field of molecular biology and Next Generation Sequencing as well as bioinformatic analysis. Currently, he is working as a as an expert in microbiome, immunology, and drug discovery and has received IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic de Barcelona scholarship by the Carlos III health institute. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was actively working on projects identifying neutralizing antibodies as an alternative therapy to vaccines and is currently in the process of obtaining patent for the drug.

Evelina Charidemou

University of Cyprus

Evelina Charidemou is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow studying the intimate link of metabolism and epigenetics in metabolic disorders. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge UK, where her research was at the Medical Research Council Human Nutrition Research. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London, where she was awarded the honorary degree of the Associateship from the Royal College of Science UK for excellent performance. Her research focuses on the development of metabolomic, lipidomic, and epigenomic tools to investigate various aspects of the metabolic syndrome, particularly, diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. She uses various tools like HPLC-mass spectrometry and multivariate bioinformatic tools to analyze biological samples and identify biomarkers to understand the underlying mechanism of metabolism in diseases. In addition, she has worked as a lecturer of nutritional biochemistry at the University of Nicosia. Evelina has presented her work at several conferences and published her work at high impact journals. She has various collaborations with the University of Oxford UK, University of Aarhus Denmark, and Imperial College London, UK. In addition, she is an active board member of the International Metabolomics Society and she is currently the chair of the early career members of the society. She is also a member of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism; the Biochemical Society and she is a founding member and president of the Cyprus Metabolomic Network.