Presidential Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania, USA;
Cesar de la Fuente is a Presidential Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He has pioneered computational approaches that have greatly accelerated antibiotic discovery, yielding numerous preclinical candidates. He has received over 80 major awards, has published over 160 papers including in Science, Cell, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Cell Host Microbe, and PNAS, and is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), becoming one of the youngest ever to be inducted.

NMR Spectroscopy, Department of Chemistry, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands, https://www.weingarth-group.net/;
Markus Weingarth (1982) is Associate Professor of NMR Spectroscopy at Utrecht University with a fundamental interest in the molecular mechanism of antibiotics. Employing integrative structural biology approaches, firmly anchored in the core expertise solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Weingarth’s group dissects the action of antimicrobials that attack bacterial cell envelopes. His team has discovered novel supramolecular killing mechanisms, which has shifted the conventional ‘1 drug : 1 target’ paradigm. In addition, Weingarth has spearheaded the development of solid-state NMR methods to study the truly native action of antibiotics directly in intact bacteria and at high-resolution, i.e., in medically relevant conditions. For his antibiotics research, Weingarth has received several distinctions, including an ERC Consolidator grant (2022) and the ‘Founders’ Medal’ (2022) of the ‘International Council on Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems’.

Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Genômicas e Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica de Brasília, Brasília, Brazil, S-Inova Biotech, Pós-Graduação em Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande, Brazil;
Octávio Luiz Franco holds a degree in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of Ceará (1998) and a PhD in Biological Sciences (Molecular Biology) from the University of Brasília (2001). He conducted his initial post-doctoral research in 2001 at Embrapa, followed by another at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He has undertaken work missions in numerous countries, including Australia, Israel, Portugal, Cuba, the Netherlands, and others. Dr. Franco completed his first sabbatical at the University of Wisconsin (USA) and the second at the University of British Columbia (Canada), focusing on infectious disease control. Currently, he serves as a professor at Universidade Catolica de Brasilia and University Catolica Dom Bosco. Additionally, he coordinates the National Institute of Science and Technology Bioinspir for bioinspired products. Dr. Franco holds the position of Researcher 1A and serves as a consultant to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Furthermore, he is a member of the Brazilian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SBBq), The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), ASM (American Society of Microbiology), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). His research is concentrated on developing bioproducts and bioprocesses, with a particular emphasis on controlling pathogenic microorganisms. Dr. Franco has authored nearly 500 papers, advised hundreds of students, and held dozens of patents for products that have entered the cosmetic and animal health markets.

Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden;