Syngenta Head of Seeds Regulatory Affairs for Europe, Africa and Middle East.
His interest is in the introduction of new technologies in food and agricultural crops with a particular focus in the technical regulatory and social implications of these new technologies.
Esteban Alcalde (born in Madrid/ Spain) studied Agronomic Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and Food Safety at the Universidad Complutense where he received his PhD.
His career has been developed in the Seeds Industry in the areas of Plant Breeding of Field crops and Biotech Regulatory. He has been a key player of projects leading to the introduction of the first GMO cultivated in Europe and developing the regulatory strategy of GMOs imported into the EU.
He is member of multiple industry associations and president of the Antama Foundation.
Since 5 years ago he leads the Syngenta Seeds Regulatory Affairs team in Europe, Africa and Middle East.

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Dr. Wolfram Brück, is the head of the microbiology laboratories at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO Valais Wallis). He received his MSc in Medical Microbiology and Molecular Microbiology at the University of Manchester Medical School in 1998 and his PhD at the University of Reading investigating the modulation of the infant gut using peptides and prebiotics in 2003 under the supervision of Prof. Glenn Gibson.  In 2005, Dr. Brück first worked at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution (Ft. Pierce, Florida) before becoming the center manager for the “Centre of Marine Biotechnology” (Co. Donegal, Ireland). In both positions, he was investigated bioactive compounds from marine species and worked on sustainability issues with local fisheries and aquaculture. Between 2010-2014, Dr. Brück was a consultant on sustainability issues for CITE Investments Ltd., London, UK. Dr. Brück is a project member of the “Smart Protein for a Changing World“-project under the H2020 LC-SFS-17-2019 call https://smartproteinproject.eu/about/). The Smart Protein project is aiming to develop alternative plant protein ingredients and products for humans which have a positive impact on bio-economy, environment, biodiversity, nutrition, food security and consumer trust and acceptance. In addition to funded projects, Dr. Brück has also run numerous Master and Bachelor level project on alternative proteins from algae and plants in collaboration with the head of Werner Siemens-Chair of Synthetic Biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich.

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Dr. Ana I. Caño-Delgado is a CSIC Investigator and coordinator of the Plant Signaling & Development Program at the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) in Barcelona. She did a PhD in Biology at John Innes Centre (UK) and was a HFSPO Postdoctoral Fellow at Salk Institute (US). She is internationally recognized for publishing numerous high-impact scientific journals, has received awards in science and entrepreneurship and is an elected EMBO Member since 2016. At CRAG, she leads the Brassinosteroid signaling group supported by an ERC CoG grant to engineering crops able to grow on severe drought. These achievements are the results of two decades of studies in plant steroids hormones, Brassinosteroids, in which she pioneers the study of signaling mechanisms with cell-specificity. Her team discovered that vascular steroid receptors confer resistance to drought without penalizing growth. In the context of a climate emergency, Caño-Delgado is currently translating her scientific results to crops to ensure food security. In addition, Caño-Delgado is an engaged science communicator chasing two specific goals: encouraging women in science leadership and acceptance of gene edition tools in agriculture.

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Ivo Frébort, a Czech citizen born in 1965; MSc. in Analytical Chemistry 1989, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic; Ph.D. in Biochemistry 1992, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic; Ph.D. in Bioresources Science 1997, Tottori University, Japan; postdoc 2001, University of Tübingen, Germany; Professor in Biochemistry at the Palacký University since 2005; visiting professor, Osaka University 2007
Ivo Frébort is the founder and Executive Director of the Centre of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research (since 2010), a member of the Executive Board of European Federation of Biotechnology (since 2012) and former Dean of the Faculty of Science, Palacký University Olomouc (2014-2018). His research covers broad areas in enzymology, molecular biology and biochemistry, with a special focus on the enzymes of hormone metabolism in plants and possible biotechnological applications, including cloning and preparation of transgenic barley (WoS 120 papers, 2100+ citation, h-26, 4 patents). His lecturing includes Molecular Biology and Structure and Function of Biomacromolecules. He was the principal investigator of a large infrastructure project (>30 mil. €) from EU structural funds and many other R&DI projects.

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Physical-chemical properties and reactivity of graphene derivatives and 2D materials (2D chemistry) and their applications in energy storage, sensing and catalysis.
Computational methods and their applications in studies on structure, properties and dynamics of biomolecules, nanomaterials and complex molecular systems.
Non-covalent interactions to nanomaterials and purface properties of (nano)materials.
Structure and dynamics of proteins, nucleic acids and complex molecular systems (e.g., biomembranes).
He lead software projects for analysis of molecular channels MOLE and MOLEonline.

Aleš Pečinka is interested in understanding role of nuclear proteins in organizing, maintaining and expressing plant genetic information under ambient and stress conditions.

Institute of Experimental Botany