Departamento de Química e Bioquímica (DQB) e Centro de Química Estrutural (CQE), Institute of Molecular Sciences, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal;Prof. Dr. Amélia Pilar Rauter, a full professor, was the founder of the Portuguese Society of Chemistry Carbohydrate Chemistry Group in 1992, and the founder (2001) and leader of the CQB Carbohydrate Chemistry Group—FCUL, a center of excellence of the ESF network Euroglycoforum (2009–2014), and Executive of its Interest Group Glycochemistry. Presently, she is the leader of the CQE Carbohydrate Chemistry Group. Her scientific interests are mainly within the area of organic and biomolecular chemistry. They cover the design and synthesis of new leads based on carbohydrate structures with new mechanisms of action, as well as the isolation and structure elucidation of active principles from plants/marine resources. This research led to the discovery of lead molecules for diabetes, degenerative diseases (Alzheimer´s and Prion diseases, cancer), and infection. Her research falls within the global objective of developing creative and sustainable chemistry for better health.

Department of Molecular Biology, Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina López-Neyra (IPBLN) CSIC, Spain;Alfredo Berzal-Herranz received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the Autonoma University of Madrid (1990). After a short stay in the Department of Microbiology, at the Uppsala University (Sweden), he moved to the Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Vermont (USA), as Postdoctoral Researcher. In 1993 he returned to Granada, Spain, joining the Instituto de Parasitologí¬a y Biomedicina López-Neyra (IPBLN) belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), where he established his own research group and Chair the Department of Molecular Biology. Since April 1997 to November 2005, he was the Deputy Director of the IPBLN-CSIC and Director since November 2005 to March 2014. He has authored over 90 research articles and book chapters and edited 10 special research issues. He serves or has served as Editorial Board Member of more than 15 research journals. His group is currently interested in understanding the structure/function relationship of viral RNA genomes. Pursuing the identification of the molecular mechanisms used by the RNA viruses to store all necessary genetic information and studying the potential use of genomic structural RNA domains as potential antiviral targets. Further, his group is interested in the design and characterization of antiviral RNA molecules.

School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland;Mary J Meegan completed her PhD degree in UCD under the direction of Professor Dervilla Donnelly in the area of natural product chemistry and subsequently carried out postdoctoral research at the University Chemical Laboratory, Cambridge University in the research group of Professor Alan Battersby in the area of porphyrin synthesis and biosynthesis. Following further research periods at University College Dubin and CNRS Gif-sur-Yvette, she was appointed as lecturer in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Trinity College Dublin. She has research experience in the School of Pharmacy and and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College in the general area of pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry, with over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers covering topics such as design and synthesis of anticancer drugs, drug impurity profiling, synthetic methods for library design and in vitro screening. She has extensive experience in scientific and technical management having led an active research group, has acted as Head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and as subject area head of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the School of Pharmacy. Research collaborations have been established within Trinity College with Dr. Niamh O'Boyle (School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences), Dr D Zisterer, Dr D Fayne in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology and also with many European research centres. She is a member of several International Scientific Societies.