Dirk Linke

Dirk Linke studied biochemistry with a focus on plant genetics at the Free University Berlin 1991-1996 and received his PhD in Chemistry from the Technical University in Berlin in 2002. He was a PostDoc and later Project Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen, Germany from 2003-2013, before he accepted a Professorship in Molecular Microbiology in Oslo, Norway. His research focus is bacterial adhesion and bacterial secretion systems. Recent work also centers on understanding host specificity of bacterial infection processes

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Romain Briandet 

Romain Briandet is research director at the Micalis INRA-AgroParisTech mix unit. His main line of interest is to decipher the links between biofilm architecture and the associated emergent functions, with special reference to pathogens persistency in the food industry. For this he is developing innovative real-time biofilm imaging tools based on confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). He is also animator of the French National Biofilm Network that organizes transdisciplinary national meetings on the topic.

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Jean-François GHIGLIONE

Director of research at the CNRS, specialist in microbial ecotoxicology. He studies the impact of pollutants on microorganisms and inversely how these organisms participate in the remediation of contaminated sites. His research is currently focused on the fate of plastics at sea, using a multidisciplinary approach (physics, chemistry, biology) to understand the formation of bacterial biofilm and its ability to biodegrade polymers.

He has several other responsibilities:
-Deputy Director of the Banyuls Ocean Observatory (FR 3724).
-Director of the "Ecotoxicology and Marine Microbial Engineering" team at the Banyuls Microbial Oceanography Laboratory (LOMIC, UMR7621).
-President of the National Microbial Ecotoxicology Network and organizer of several scientific conferences in this field.
-Member of the CNRS Scientific Council.
He his author or co-author of more than 60 scientific publications and numerous communications in the national and international press.

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Paula Parreira

Paula Parreira graduated in Microbiology by the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Portugal) in 2007. In the same year she joined the team of Prof. M. Cristina Martins at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering of University of Porto (INEB), and from 2007 to 2013 conducted her PhD studies, under the guidance of Prof. M. Cristina Martins and Prof. Deborah Leckband (University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign in the USA), a pioneer in the use of force measurements techniques. During her time abroad, Paula Parreira worked mainly with Atomic Force Microscopy techniques in order to study and characterize bacterial interactions (adhesion-ligand complex). Her PhD has provided new insights for the development of alternative therapeutics for Helicobacter pylori infection, based on the creation of surfaces able to specifically bind this pathogen in order to eliminate it from infected hosts. After finishing her PhD, Paula Parreira joined the Bioactives Research Group of Centro de Biotecnologia Agricola e Agro-Alimentar do Alentejo (CEBAL) as a Postdoc Researcher. Currently, Paula Parreiras research main focus relies on the development of alternative therapies against H. pylori based on bioengineered approaches to increase the bioactives bioavailability, in close liaison with INEB as well as with Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP).

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Ole Andreas Løchen Økstad

Ole Andreas Økstad studied biochemistry (MSc, 1995), and later received his PhD in Microbiology in 2000 from the University of Oslo, Norway. He was a PostDoc at the Biotechnology Centre of Oslo from 2000-2005, including a period as visiting scientist at the University of Oxford (Department of Biochemistry, 2001) before accepting an Associate Professor position (2005-2015) at the School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo. He has been guest scientist at The Institute for Genomic Research (2003, 2006), and had sabbatical periods at Macquarie University, Sydney (2011, 2016) and INRA, France (2016). Since 2015 he is full Professor of Pharmaceutical Microbiology at the School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo. His research focus is on molecular mechanisms and regulation of bacterial biofilm formation. Recent work also centres on novel antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance.

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