Sybille Buchwald-Werner is German and studied pharmacy at the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf. She did her PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry, specializing in computer-aided drug design, so-called molecular modeling. From 2001 through 2009 Sybille worked for Cognis GmbH, Germany, in different management positions all related to strategic portfolio and innovation management of natural ingredients. Since 2009 she is co-founder and managing director of Vital Solutions GmbH. Vital Solutions works globally in the field of natural ingredients for us in food, functional food, dietary supplements and cosmetics. Sybille’s research interests encompass topics such as gut health, brain health, joint health and physiological disorders related to oxidative and inflammatory processes. In addition Sybille supports the development of the Southern African natural product industry. She initiates and carries out capacity building, new product development and marketing projects for African raw material. She has written over 30 publications and has given over 30 lectures aimed at either scientific or industrial audiences.

Undurti N Das is an M.D. in Internal Medicine from Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, India and a Fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, India. Since 1976 he has turned his attention to clinical-orientated research, with specific interests in the role of polyunsaturated fatty acids, cytokines, nitric oxide, free radicals, and anti-oxidants in various clinical conditions especially in cancer, inflammatory conditions, metabolic syndrome X, and schizophrenia. Undurti N Das has held several research positions including those in Osmania University, India, and Efamol Research Institute, Kentville, Canada; and was previously Research Professor of Surgery and Nutrition at SUNY (State University of New York) Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, USA. He is currently the Chairman and Research Director of the privately held biotech company UND Life Sciences LLC, Shaker Heights, OH, USA. Undurti Das is also the Editor-in-Chief of Lipids in Health and Disease. Dr Das has more than 350 international publications in peer-reviewed journals and has been awarded 3 USA patent.

Giorgio Dell’Acqua is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at Nutrafol. He is also the 2022 Chair of the NY Chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. After obtaining his PhD in Cell Biology in 1989, Giorgio worked in Academia for 15 years as an investigator in applied medical research. Moving to the private sector in 2000, he has spent the last 22 years as an executive and cosmetic scientist in the personal care industry. During his career, he directed R&D, Innovation, Science, and Product Development at multiple companies. He has helped bringing more than 200 successful active ingredients and finished products to market, has authored more than 80 publications in medicine and cosmetic science, he holds 2 patents and has been a keynote speaker on clean beauty, natural ingredients, and sustainability.

Dr Sandra Einerhand is the founder of Einerhand Science & Innovation BV, a company providing science-based strategic advice and services to infant formula and other food (ingredient) companies going from new product ideas to product commercialization and go-to market communication. She is currently also a member of the scientific advisory board of Triskelion and works on a freelance basis as fellow for Presans, a service provider in innovation.

Before she worked for Danone Nutricia Research (NL), Tate & Lyle Ingredients (F) and Lipid Nutrition (NL) as Scientific Program Director and Nutrition & Health Director leading large scientific programs to bring new prebiotics, probiotics, lipids and infant formula products (among others) to the market with scientifically proven health benefits yielding several patents.

She has more than 20 years of experience in business-oriented research management and innovation in early life nutrition (including prebiotics, probiotics and lipids), gut and metabolic health sciences.

During the first part of her career she worked as associate professor specialized in prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases in children and published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and secured fundraising from national and international organizations. She studied Chemistry in Amsterdam and has a PhD in Life Sciences. For further details, please visit the linked-in profile: www.linkedin.com/in/sandraeinerhand

Sian Lucking studied biological sciences at the University College Cork, Ireland. After her MSc in conservation and biodiversity at the University of Exeter, England, she worked with several government and NGO organisations in England and Ireland developing sustainable fisheries practices and resilient coastal environments. In 2015, she returned to the University College Cork to complete a part-enterprise funded PhD in microbiology. Partnering with Biomarine Ingredients Ireland Ltd and the APC Microbiome Ireland Institute, she focussed on the development of high-end value nutritional products from three pelagic fish species. Her research delved into the areas of aquaculture feeds, protein hydrolysates for functional beverages and, brain health, all based in a foundation of nutrition for gut health.

Before moving to Atlantia, Sian spent a time in academia, providing project management and specialist research expertise to several multi-national, EU-funded projects. She now leads the scientific team at the Cork-based CRO Atlantia Clinical Trials, delivering world-class human clinical studies to ICH-GCP standards. Sian’s research interests encompass marine sustainable food development, biotics and functional foods, microbial health and the gut-brain-axis. Sian currently works with a broad range of companies specialising in nutrition, microbiome and disease prevention research.

Dr Laura Headley has a strong background in clinical trials and building scientific substantiation, particularly for nutraceutical and functional food and beverage ingredients. Before joining Döhler GmbH (Darmstadt, Germany), Laura worked as a Nutritional Scientist both within the nutraceutical industry and academia.

Initially starting her career as a clinical Dietitian in the NHS (UK), Laura went on to earn a PhD from the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK in the field of human nutrition and cardiovascular disease. Remaining at the University of Surrey as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Laura was responsible for the set-up and management of various clinical trials, focusing mainly on nutrition intervention studies involving vitamin D.

Dr. Matulka has 10+ years of working on the front lines of food and dietary supplement safety assessment. He has considerable depth of experience in generally recognized as safe determinations (GRAS), GRAS Notifications, New Dietary Ingredient Notifications, Food Contact Notifications and risk assessments on food contaminations. Dr. Matulka has mastered the literal doctrine and the important nuances of food and feed ingredient regulations and; has applied these principles in his experience in one-on-one negotiations with the Center for Food Safety and Nutrition and the Center for Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Matulka earned a doctorate in toxicology from the Medical College of Virginia, and has post-doctoral experience at both Boston University School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina. He has had industry experience at the Nebraska Dept. of Environmental Control and as a senior genetic toxicologist at Genesys Research in North Carolina. He is co-author of two book chapters and has authored 20 publications since obtaining his doctoral degree. Dr. Matulka has experience presenting information to the FDA, USDA and EPA.

Dr. Michelle Niedziela (PhD) is a behavioral neuroscience expert in neuropsychology, psychology and consumer science. Experienced from academia (Monell Chemical Senses Center) and industry (Johnson & Johnson, Mars Chocolate) in R&D of innovation technologies and methodologies for consumer research. As Scientific Director, HCD Michelle focuses on integrating applied consumer neuroscience tools with traditional methods used to measure consumer response.

Arthur Ouwehand was graduated to be teacher in biology and chemistry in 1987. He subsequently did his masters in biology at Wageningen University; specialising in microbiology and biochemistry (1992). Arthur did his PhD in microbiology at Göteborg University where he worked on interactions between dairy proteins and probiotics and pathogenic E. coli (1996). At the University of Turku he did his post-doc continuing to work on probiotic adhesion and working on other functional aspects of probiotics and the intestinal microbiota. Since 2004, Arthur has been working for Danisco as group manager within the Health and Nutrition team in Kantivk (Finland); working on the health aspects of probiotics and prebiotics, and the composition and activity of the intestinal microbiota. He remains, however, associate professor at the University of Turku for the Functional Foods Forum.

Demosthenes Panagiotakos is Associate Professor in Biostatistics – Epidemiology at Harokopio University, Greece. He has studied Mathematics (BSc), Mathematical Statistics (MSc/PhD), Biostatistics (MSc) and he has a Doctorate in Medicine (epidemiology) from the Universities of Patras and Athens. His post-Doctorate training was in Cardiovascular Epidemiology, at VAMC/Georgetown University, Washington DC, as well as in Climate Change and Human Health at LSHTM, University of London. His main research interests include cardiovascular epidemiology and risk modelling. He has published three books, 15 chapters in book series, 401 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, and 35 papers in Conference Proceedings or other Journals.

George is the executive director of the International Probiotic s Association (IPA). George has been involved with the probiotic industry since 2007 where he served in various roles from business development to account management with a globally recognized probiotic producer. During this time he also served on the IPA board of directors and had 2 mandates as president before taking on the association’s leadership role as executive director. George represents the IPA in the media, to all probiotic industry stakeholders, and in appearances at conventions, conferences, and other symposiums.

Some of the on-going IPA initiatives for the probiotic industry that he is piloting are, outreach programs to different regulators around the world, education platforms for health care providers and consumers in the way of probiotic conferences through the IPA and other event company partners and media outlets, expanding IPA offices in other regions of the world, publishing probiotic related papers addressing pertinent subject matter in the industry, blogs through IPA social media platforms, and collaborating with other associations in order to consolidate the probiotic message. IPA is also part of the Advisory council for the newly formed Center for Digestive Health (IFNH) at Rutgers U, and the AEP (Alliance for the Education of Probiotics).   

IPA’s mission is to bridge the gap of all stakeholders in the probiotic sector and be the unique platform where all these entities interact in enabling the probiotic industry’s awareness and growth. George’s focus is to continue driving the positive message for probiotic benefits and have the IPA continue being the Global Voice of Probiotics.

Dr Igor Pravst is Head of research group “Nutrition and Public Health” at the Nutrition Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He focusses on research into functional foods, food labelling and in particular consumers’ use of nutrition and health claims. Igor holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and his areas of research expertise include food composition and the function of food constituents in human health. He is collaborating in various European and national research project, for example a FP7 project REDICLAIM (REduction of DIsease risk CLAIMs on food and drinks), where he leads a work package about the interaction between ‘reduction of disease risk’ claim legislation and substantiation process. One of the tasks of this project is to compare health claims legislation in the European Union and other countries. Igor Pravst is also an assistant professor in Nutrition at the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles on nutrition-related topics in renown journals such as Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, Molecular Nutrition & Food Research and Food Policy. Igor is also a member of the Slovenian Board for food safety.

Serena Tongiani graduated from University Perugia, Italy, with a diploma in Pharmaceutical Science and a PhD in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Science from University of Urbino, Italy.

From 2002 to 2005 she worked at the University of Kansas as research associate conducting research on new drug delivery technologies. During this time, she synthesized and structurally characterized a new family of cyclodextrin derivatives with superior binding capacity.  These derivatives provide a universal tool to formulate insoluble drugs. She holds the worldwide patent for this derivatives that are still representing one of the most potent and innovative tool in various field of research. Several start up and spin off companies have been started based on this technology and she is actively collaborating to augment the business around this polymers in several field spanning form drug development to cosmetic and nutraceutical applications, (only as an example the 2C technology of the Infasil deo products is based on this technology).

In 2005 Dr. Tongiani joint Schering Plough Corporation in the US headquarters and started to work in the oral and solid formulation product development group. There she followed the development of new chemical entities from bench to commercialization scale up with the chance to follow all the regulatory approval stages supervising a cross functional team of scientists and technicians.

In 2008 she took over the responsibility of the anti-inflammatory drug development group in Merck where she was engaged in the setup of the phase III studies for one of Merck major drug candidates. She progressed her carrier adding international experience in various managerial roles with increasing responsibilities that included several strategic business decisions. She has managed multifunctional teams, spanning from R&D, production and BD specialist overlooking sensible budget decisions.

In 2010 she took over the position of Head of Preclinical Development departments in ACRAF, Angelini, located in Santa Palomba, Rome, and shortly after, in May 2011, became R&D Director. In this responsibility she has led the research group, including the in vivo and in vitro pharmacology group and the clinical team, to develop drug products for various therapeutic area supporting the company portfolio. She balanced the Angelini R&D pipeline to include projects in early development in the main company core areas (Pain and Inflammation, Nervous System and Antinfectives, and for all the consumer goods including main global brands such as Amuchina, Infasil and Anjelif and Tantum) as well as projects in the late stage of clinical development to support the life cycle management of the products already included in the company portfolio. She also started a dynamic approach to the Angelini’s R&D pipeline that gained to the group several partnerships with center of excellence around the world and several awards and recognitions as best R&D management.

Furthermore, given the Angelini diversified portfolio she started to develop and manage the regulatory registration not only for pharmaceutical products (OTC, Rx and hospital) but also in the cosmetic, nutraceutical and homecare field. She was among the leadership team involve in the acquisition of Infasil and Thermacare.

In 2015 Serena was appointed Chief Scientific Officer in Angelini with an overall responsibility for the company portfolio development, supervising also the Business Development and Regulatory Affairs activities. She has been involved in the licensing in of innovative anti-infectives and CNS drugs for Angelini global market and in the Marketing Authorization acquisition and EU launch of the CNS drug Lurasidone.

For Lurasidone she also managed the pediatric plan EU approval and implementation.

Serena holds several worldwide patents and is the author of more than 70 publications and several editorials and positioning paper. She is actively organizing and moderating pharmaceutical conferences in her area of expertise and she was among the founders of the Italian Drug Discovery network.

In 2020 Serena started a new position as Chief Scientific Officer in IBNSavio, an Italian SME.

In 2021 Serena accepted the position of Chief Portfolio Officer in Indena leading company dedicated to the identification, development and production of high quality active principles from plants, for pharma and healthfood.

She is still following her passion for innovative delivery systems and their application in several fields including consumer health nutraceutical and cosmeceutical product. Serena seats in the scientific board of the TKS publisher and she served as board member and scientific advisor in the University of Torvergata spin off C4T specialized in innovative drug discovery services. In her current position global management skills are essential to take strategic business and investment decision and in order to benchmark a continuous improvement she recently concluded successfully the INSEAD program in Finance for Executives.

Nina’s background is scientific, she holds an engineering Masters in agronomy from AgroParisTech, the leading school for life sciences in France, where she specialized in nutrition and was involved in research at Penn State University, USA, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the National Institute for Agronomic Research (now INRAe).

Nina has over 10 years of experience in the probiotics industry, in probiotic supplements sales, technical marketing and training for Probiotical and TargEDys.

Today, she develops the business for Bioprox Healthcare, offering CDMO services of probiotic strains production, as well as its sister company Cybele Agrocare, developing, producing and commercializing microbial biofertilizers to help the agricultural sector develop sustainable practices and adapt to climate stress without compromising on yield and profitability.

Nina is an enthusiast of symbioses, microorganisms and One Health on a personal mission to spread the good word on the powers of bacteria. Bacterial blogger, she’s an eager translator of the science to business and to consumers.

Andrea is a Chemist with many years of experience in Consumer Healthcare innovation with extensive knowledge of project management and a successful track record of R&D for new technologies and products. Andrea currently appointed as President of Federsalsus (Italian trade Association for Food Supplements). Author of different publications and patents, since January 2013 Andrea leads a Global Team within Scientific Affairs of a Pharmaceutical Industry, focused on innovation and life cycle management of Consumer Healthcare Products that includes Food Supplements for cholesterol control, hair loss and dermatological applications.