Manuel Anotonio Coimbra

Universidade de Aveiro in Portugal

Topic:

Polysaccharides and food industry under a circular economy

www.ua.pt/pt/qopna/mac

 

---

Manuel A. Coimbra is Full Professor at the Department of Chemistry of University of Aveiro, Portugal. He graduated in 1985 in Biochemistry at the University of Porto and got his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Aveiro in 1993, in a collaboration with the Institute of Food Research, in Norwich, UK. He is Professor of Food Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the BSc graduation in Biochemistry.
The scientific expertise and interests of Manuel A. Coimbra are focused on carbohydrate chemistry, polysaccharide structure and applications, food chemistry, and industry by-products valuation under a circular economy. The research has been based in Aveiro at the Associated Laboratory LAQV/REQUIMTE, allowing to rule over 80 research projects funded by different entities, including industries. He is co-author of 8 patents, 340 research peer-reviewed papers (13,700 citations, h=62, Scopus), and supervised 28 PhD thesis (+9 running) and 13 Post-Docs.
Manuel A. Coimbra is Editor in Chief of Elsevier journal Carbohydrate Polymers (IF2022=11.2), President of the Scientific Panel of Food Additives and Food Chain Contaminants of ASAE, the Portuguese Food Safety Agency.

 

Prof. Nádya Pesce da Silveira, Ph.D.

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil

Topic:

Agarose nanoparticles: preparation and properties

www.orcid.org/0000-0002-1556-7304

 

---

Nádya Silveira is a Titular Professor at the Institute of Chemistry and, a member of the Polymers Laboratory - CNPq. Nádya Silveira's expertise focuses on Macromolecules, Auto-organized Colloidal Systems, Delivery Nanocarriers, and developing Colloidal Systems from sustainable and renewable green platforms. The development of auto-organized carriers applying nanostructured lipids, proteins, and polysaccharides for application in biotechnology has recently been pursued. Her field of research focuses on the application of Scattering Techniques, mainly Light Scattering, for materials characterization.

Prof. Robert Gilbert

University of Queensland in Australia

Topic:
Starch and glycogen: molecular cousins of importance to human health

qaafi.uq.edu.au/profile/24/bob-gilbert
 

---

Professor Robert (‘Bob’) Gilbert works both at the University of Queensland (Australia) and Yangzhou University (China). He has written about 550 papers and two books, and has supervised over 200 research students. For the last two decades, his research interests have been in the biosynthesis, structure and properties of complex branched glucose polymers, particularly starch and glycogen, especially their relationships to human health. The major theme in his work is the development of mathematical relationships enabling appropriate data, and devising new experimental means of obtaining data, to understand these relationships. He is fluent in French and German, as well as his native English, and speaks basic Chinese. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Francisco Vilaplana

KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden

Topic:

TBA

www.se.linkedin.com/in/francisco-vilaplana-7154524

---

 

Francisco Vilaplana is a Chemical Engineer from the Polytechnical University of Valencia (UPV) and holds a PhD in Polymer Technology from both UPV and KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden). After two postdoctoral stays in The Netherlands and Australia he moved back to Sweden in 2011, where he currently develops his research activities both in the academic and private sectors. He is Full Professor and Head of the Division of Glycoscience at KTH. He leads a research group on plant biochemistry and biotechnology, focused on the structural understanding of plant and fungal polysaccharides and their valorisation into bio-based products for biomaterial and nutritional applications using green chemistry and enzyme technology. During 2021-2023 he was the Chair of the panel “Chemical Engineering, Bioprocess Technology and Environmental Technology” at the Swedish Research Council. He is founding Director of KTH FOOD – a multidisciplinary research centre for a sustainable food system. At the same time, since 2022 he is part-time principal scientist at Oatly, where he leads a research program on plant structure and health. He has published over 120 scientific publications on diverse fields coupled to glycoscience, including plant sciences, bioprocess technology, material sciences, and food technology.

Andreas Mautner

The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna

Topic:

Properties and applications of chitin-glucan and nanocellulose

http://www.ifa-tulln.boku.ac.at/bkt

 

---

Dr. Andreas Mautner has studied Technical Chemistry/Materials Science at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) and Lunds Universitet (Sweden). In 2012 he received his Ph.D. from TU Wien for a work on degradable photopolymers. He then joined Imperial College London as Research Associate working for two years on membrane applications of nanocellulose. In 2014 he was appointed postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna, where he continued research into nanocellulose composites, membranes, and filters as well as renewable polymer materials (e.g. fungal chitin, cellulose from agricultural waste) in general. He was promoted to Senior Scientist in 2020 and obtained “Habilitation” in Materials Chemistry in 2021 heading the Core Facility “Interface Characterization”. In 2023 he was appointed by BOKU University to head the working group BioPlastic Technology at IFA-Tulln obtaining a Tenure Track Professorship.

prof. Salwa Karboune 

Associate Dean (Research) at Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at McGill University, Québec, Canada

Topic:
Integrated Approaches to Biotransform Biomasses into Carbohydrate-based Functional Ingredients: Oligo/polysaccharides and their Feruloylated derivatives

https://www.karboune-group.lab.mcgill.ca/
https://www.mcgill.ca/foodscience/staff-and-research/salwa-karboune
 

---

 

Professor Salwa Karboune holds the position of the Associate Dean (Research) at Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at McGill University. She is the scientific director of RITA Consortium, an inclusive platform that establishes collaboration between research institutions and the food processing industry. Her research has led to internationally recognized contributions to the development of enzymatic glycosylation approaches for the efficient synthesis of carbohydrate-based biomolecules. In addition to their techno-functional properties, carbohydrate-based biomolecules have an essential role in innumerable biological functions; their tailor-made synthesis, shaped on demand, is of high importance in various fields. Her research work also contributes to the sustainability by developing approaches to generate highly added-value oligo/polysaccharides from abundant biomasses. She published in more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and presented at world-wide known conferences. Professor Karboune is passionate about science and active learning, and places a high value on creation through innovation and dissemination through translation of the knowledge.