Dr. José Juan Rodríguez Jerez is a professor in the Departament of Animal and Food Sciences at the UAB. Since 1996, he works on techniques based on immunology (ELFA), ATP analysis, microscopy (light, electron, fluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy, and image analysis) and molecular biology (real-time PCR and sequencing). There are five scientists in his research group, which is specialised in development of rapid methods for foodborne disease prevention, by controlling cross-contamination between surfaces and foods, and has more than 350 publications, 112 of which are research papers, 12 of which are book chapters and more than 250 of which are popular science papers. From 2000 to 2008, he was in charge of the scientific coordination of the website www.consumaseguridad.com, and currently, he carries out the same task at http://mapaperills.uab.cat.
Dr. Armand Sánchez Bonastre, head of the Molecular Genetics Veterinary Service (SVGM) of the UAB, is an emeritus professor in the Departament of Animal and Food Sciences at the UAB. Head of the research group “Molecular animal breeding in veterinary sciences”, whose activities focus on the application of molecular techniques to animal production. He has been in charge of many projects funded by Spanish or international public institutions, or private companies. Currently, he takes part in animal genomics projects on genetic characterization of characteristics interesting for animal production, and in the development of analytical methods for molecular diagnosis. He has published about 200 papers in international journals on molecular genetics applied to livestock production.
Mr. Jon Basagoiti Azpitarte, after doing microbiological control in a beer industry (from 1986 to 1992), works on different aspects of food quality and safety management systems. Regarding quality systems, he audits at several fields of industrial activity and services, with more than 1,500 audits, focused on food industries. He is involved in HACCP system since 1993, when he heard about it as an ISO 9001 quality system consultant and auditor. Since 1996, he teaches many courses on audits and HACCP to food industries and inspectors from different Spanish autonomous regions. From a practical application point of view, he tries to make sure the developed or evaluated HACCP systems recognize the behaviour of food hazards in industrial processes, so that they can be effectively controled. He is one of the promoters and the scientific editor of the The Enemy in your Kitchen project (https://elenemigoentucocina.com).
Dr. José Martínez Peinado got his position as a professor of Microbiology at the Facultad de Biología of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1988. Besides his teaching and research activities, he was chairman of the Sociedad Española de Microbiología (SEM) specialist group on Industrial microbiology (1991-1998), deputy chairman of the SEM (1998-2006), and chairman of the Comisión de Normalización de Técnicas y Métodos Microbiológicos from its creation in 1999 to 2006. Member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Food Protection (1998-2000) and International Microbiology (from 1991 up to now). Commissioner at the International Comission for Yeasts (ICY) (1998-2017), a specialised commission on yeasts of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. He has been an evaluator in the Agencia Nacional de Evaluación y Prospectiva, the university quality agencies of Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal), the US-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (Israel), and the European Commission (4th, 5th and 6th framework programmes), in the fields of food microbiology and biotechnology. He has supervised ten Ph.D. students, and participated as a lead researcher in ten Spanish projects and two European projects. He collects positive evaluation of his research in six 6-year periods.
Mr. Pascal Monzó Martos received his B.S. degree in Veterinary science from the Universidad de Zaragoza. He started his professional practice at dairy industry and, in 1990, joined the poultry industry, at Productos Florida (DACSA Group), in Vila-real, Castellón, where he founded and have led the microbiology laboratory from that year. His activities include all the microbiology-related areas, such as chick incubation room: viability and risk control in hatching, and hygiene and disinfection criteria assessment; chick incubation and birth room: control and safety criteria establishment; feed plant: raw material control and production process evaluation; field: support and control in pathologies (broilers); carcass production (slaughtering, plucking, evisceration, maturing, etc.): criteria establishment and process evaluation; dressing and packaging (processes which were started at the company in 2005): preservation optimization (modified atmosphere, plastic films, etc.), criteria establishment and expiry date assessment; processed poultry: control and criteria establishment. During all these years, he has gone through different stages in microbiology: from the conventional one, then, chromogenic culture media, and currently, automated equipment; and he has met different “trends” regarding pathogenic bacteria: first, Salmonella, then, Listeria monocytogenes, and finally, Campylobacter jejuni, which are of great importance at poultry industry, without forgetting antimicrobial resistances, which may turn out to be harmful. His large experience gives him a complete view of poultry industry risks; he concludes that microorganisms are constantly adapting to human challenges and surprising us, we will never have enough knowledge about the exciting microbial world, they will keep on causing many headaches.
Dr. Oscar J. Esteban Cabornero defines himself as “a tireless knowledge seeker and ‘grower’ of teams”. After doing research in microbiology for several years (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), he worked on technical equipment development in food industries. With a 25-year professional career, he has worked in dairy sector (Grupo Calidad Pascual); fruit juice and soft drink sector (AMC Group); and cheese sector for 15 years up to now, on new product development and currently as a head of quality at Grupo Entrepinares, in Valladolid. In those years, his wide range of tasks includes: quality, environmental coordination, laboratory professionalisation, product development, and establishment of corporate strategies for food safety and total quality. Currently, he mainly focuses on responsible leadership and sustainability. He juggles his professional activity and teaching and research, with participation in more than 30 projects and several publications in scientific and sectorial journals. He collaborates with the Universidades de Valladolid, Burgos, Pontificia Comillas, Autònoma de Barcelona and Complutense de Madrid, and is a member of the Sociedad Española de Microbiología. Further information: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscarjesteban.
Dr. Julio César Lamela Pérez received his Ph.D. in Human medicine from the Universidad de la República, in Montevideo (Uruguay), in 1997, and did postgraduate studies as Specialist in Microbiology by the Department of Bacteriology and Virology of the Hygiene Institute at the same university in 2007. He is specialised in industrial microbiology, and links functional, aetiopathogenic and structural knowledge of microorganisms to the study and prevention of biological contamination and risk evaluation (microbiological view vs. real risk) in the food production and analysis chain, being food safety his professional goal related to public health. He joined the Cooperativa Nacional de Productores de Leche (Conaprole) in 1987, where he gained experience in production processes and manufacturing and packaging lines; there, he is an assistant of the Microbiology Laboratory of the Quality central Laboratory from 1997, a technical director of the Microbiology reference Laboratory from 2007 and a consultant of quality management about food and environmental microbiology issues. He is a food safety consultant at the Instituto Uruguayo de Normas Técnicas (UNIT) from 2003. He is an independent consultant (www.jlconsultorias.com) of food industries and hypermarkets from 2016. He also teaches about food and industrial biosafety and analytical microbiology issues. Some of his main tasks are accreditation of pathogen assays (ISO 17025:2017 standard), collaboration as an expert in biological risks (food safety team, HACCP, etc.), and search and diagnosis of environmental and production line contaminants (control and detection of microbial pathogens and indicators, mainly Salmonella spp., Cronobacter spp. and Listeria monocytogenes; epidemiological study of contaminant strains, niche research).
Mr. David Tomás Fornés is the coordinator of the Spanish Working Group on Standardisation in food microbiology at the Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE), and an expert in International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and European Committee for Standardization (CEN) technical committees. He is a global scientific affairs associate director at bioMérieux, and collaborates with the Research Institute of Food Engineering (FoodUPV) at the Universitat Politècnica de València. He worked as a technical auditor in the Spanish Accreditation Body (ENAC), as a microbiological methods specialist at Merck Life Science, as a senior scientist at Nestlé Research Center, in Lausanne (Switzerland), and as a head of the Microbiology and Molecular biology Laboratory at ainia, centro tecnológico.
Dr. Montse Vila Brugalla works in the Food Safety Management (DISAL) at the Barcelona Public Health Agency, by doing official inspections in food establishments of Barcelona city. She was a head, for 12 years, of the Quality control Department of a ready-to-eat meal industry. Her interest in thermobacteriology and the way of establishing food shelf-life leads her to the knowledge of microbial growth and inactivation models, and predictive microbiology. In 2002, she defended her research work entitled “Study on the application of Gompertz equation and Baranyi model for establishment of pasteurized sauce shelf-life”, in the Food nutrition, technology and hygiene postgraduate programme. In 2012, she participated in writing the “Guideline on good hygiene practices specific for sous-vide cooking”. Her Ph.D. thesis analysed the inclusion, in primary models, of the experimental variability observed after sous-vide treatments of a food at mild temperatures. From 2013, she has been an assistant professor in the Departament of Animal and Food Sciences at the UAB for several periods of time.