Speakers

Dr. Nelson Alexandre da Cruz Soares is an expert in proteomics and metabolomics, with a research career spanning multiple countries and prestigious institutions. Dr. Soares earned his BSc in biochemistry and microbiology University of Westminster London in England. He then completed his PhD in Plant Biochemistry from the University of Lisbon in Portugal in 2008. He was in two post-doctoral programs at the University of La Coruna in Spain from 2007 to 2010, followed by a postdoc in University of Tubingen in Germany from 2010 to 2013. In 2013. At the University of Cape Town-South Africa, he was appointed as junior research fellow. In 2018 he joins a South African governmental OMICS initiative “DIPLOMICS”, as coordinator of the working group for Proteomics and Metabolomics. August 2019, He was appointed as an assistant professor in the University of Sharjah, Sharjah- United Arab Emirates. In March 2023 he became associated to Proteomics Laboratory of Proteomics, National Institute Ricardo Jorge, Lisbon – Portugal.  July 2024, he joined Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences as an Associate Professor and expert in proteomics/metabolomics at the Center for Applied and Translational Genomics.

Dr. Soares has authored or co-authored over 115 research articles and reviews in leading journals, including Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, Journal of Proteome Research, Proteomics, and Scientific Reports. His work has garnered over 3,000 citations and an h-index of 28 (Google Scholar). 

Research Statement: Dr. Soares employs multi-omics approach to investigate disease mechanisms and identify biomarkers with high specificity and sensitivity. By integrating proteomics, metabolomics, and other omics data, he aims to build systems-level models of health and disease, advancing translational medicine through precision biomarker discovery.

Cherine Bechara is a full professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Montpellier. Her research focuses on integrating structural mass spectrometry with complementary classical approaches to investigate the structure, dynamics, and function of G protein–coupled receptors.
Her current research on chemokine receptors combines native and hydrogen–deuterium exchange mass spectrometry with biochemical, structural, and pharmacological methods to elucidate how ligands and bacterial toxins modulate receptor structure and signaling in health and disease. Her contributions have been recognized through multiple awards and distinctions, including the Young Researcher Award from the French Society of Mass Spectrometry and a delegation to the Institut Universitaire de France as an IUF Junior Member.

Enrique Santamaría obtained the PhD degree in Biochemistry (2005) from the Department of Hepatology and Gene Therapy, University of Navarra (UNAV). After this, he was a postdoc in the group of Fernando Corrales (2006-10) at Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA, Spain), gaining extensive knowledge in proteomic strategies to improve the potency and safety of HSV-1 based-oncolytic vectors. In 2011, he joined the Navarrabiomed Research Center as the Head of the Clinical Neuroproteomics Unit. Currently, he is associate professor at the Public University of Navarra, and his lab is affiliated to the Spanish Olfactory Network. His group is focused on the characterization of mechanisms associated to brain function and neurodegeneration using olfactory multi-omic approaches, to establish future intranasal therapies. He has edited several books about brain and cerebrospinal fluid proteomics in the context of the Human Brain Proteome Project. He is also member of the European Chemoreception Research Organization and Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research (GCCR).

Etienne Coyaud, a cell biologist, earned his PhD in cancer research in Toulouse in 2011. During his postdoctoral studies in Toronto from 2011 to 2019, he extensively employed proximity-based interactomics to investigate protein-protein interactions (PPIs) in both normal and pathological cellular mechanisms, including the centrosome/cilium, virus-host interfaces, and ubiquitin E3 ligase substrates. As a Marie Curie fellow from 2019 to 2021, and since 2021 as a full researcher at Inserm, he has led studies on pathogenic systems-host PPIs, particularly unraveling the oncogenic mechanisms of the Merkel Cell Polyomavirus, which is implicated in aggressive skin cancers. He is now establishing his group in Lille (Inserm U1192, PRISM), concentrating on PPI dynamics at the proteoform scale in cellular responses to stress, with a particular focus on DNA damage response mechanisms.

After completing my PhD in quantitative proteomics in 2019, I joined Prof. Olsen’s laboratory at the NNF Center for Protein Research, University of Copenhagen. During four years, I focused on advancing mass spectrometry technologies, with particular emphasis on developing methodologies to study the phosphoproteome and its role in signalling and disease.

In 2024, I was awarded the prestigious "Ayuda de Atracción al Talento César Nombela", a competitive fellowship supporting the return of postdoctoral scientists to research groups in Madrid. This award enabled me to establish my own research line on post-translational signalling in the context of cardiovascular disease, within the group of Cardiovacular Proteomics at CNIC.

The research of my group focuses on the genotype-phenotype relationship, aiming to understand how genetic variations between individuals manifest as observable differences in phenotypic characteristics. This relationship is complex because it involves different levels of molecular organisation that are closely interconnected and subject to multiple factors. Over the past 15 years, we have been addressing this issue to improve our understanding of the drought response in maize, employing holistic approaches based particularly on the integration of multi-omics data. As part of our proteomics facility activity (http://pappso.inrae.fr/en/), we are also developing high-throughput proteomics, peptidomics, and metaproteomics approaches for plant characterization, to enhance the application of proteomics in plant breeding and agroecology research programmes.

Celso A. Reis is a Research Coordinator and Head of the Glycobiology in Cancer group at i3S - Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, University of Porto, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at ICBAS School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto. 

He is the Portuguese national representative and serves as the Secretary General of the International Glycoconjugate Organization.

His work has led to the identification of molecular mechanisms of glycan biosynthesis and their role regulating carcinogenesis and cancer progression. He has disclosed molecular mechanisms controlling glycosylation in cancer with particular focus on tumor progression. He has applied glycomic and glycoproteomic strategies for the identification of biomarkers and the development of novel strategies to improve cancer diagnosis, prognosis and cancer patient stratification. His findings have also led to the development of advanced models and strategies to target glycans and glycoconjugates for therapies.

Celso A. Reis has received several international recognitions and has published 248 peer-reviewed papers as well as several patents, with over 16500 citations and with H-index of 65. Many of his articles are in high profile journals including Cancer Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Cancer Research, Oncogene, Clinical Cancer Research, Human Molecular Genetics, British Journal Cancer, Journal of Clinical Pathology; Journal of Clinical Investigation, Cell Reports Medicine, Journal of American Chemical Society, Journal Biological Chemistry, PNAS, Glycobiology, Molecular & Cellular Proteomics and Nature Reviews in Cancer.

Dr. Reis has supervised/ co-supervised 32 PhD students, 25 post-doctoral fellows and 10 associate researchers. He has delivered 200 lectures in international venues, organized several international scientific meetings and courses and has done an extensive work in promoting glycobiology, glycomics and glycoproteomics all over the world. He received financial support from several international agencies including the European Commission’s Horizon, EIC Pathfinder, MSCA; FCT; The Association for International Cancer Research AICR / Worldwide Cancer Research, the Institut Merieux Research Grant and by various Pharmaceutical Companies.

Guadalupe Gómez Baena is Associate Professor in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at the University of Córdoba (Spain) and Honorary Research Member of the University of Liverpool (UK). She is an expert in quantitative mass spectrometry–based proteomics and leads the Veteromics research group, which applies advanced proteomic technologies to animal health, welfare, and conservation.

With more than two decades of international research experience, she has implemented discovery-driven and targeted workflows, including QconCAT-based multiplexed absolute quantification, for precise protein quantification in complex biological matrices. Her research encompasses protein-mediated chemical communication in wild species and molecular approaches to welfare and health assessment. She has published in leading journals such as PNAS, PLOS Biology, and ISME Journal, and is co-inventor of an international patent for a proteomics-based diagnostic approach to bacterial meningitis.

Within the European LIFE Lynxconnect project, her team applies quantitative proteomics to investigate chemical communication in the endangered species Iberian lynx, generating knowledge aimed at improving population connectivity and supporting evidence-based conservation strategies.