Keynote speaker

Prof. Andrea Brenciani studied biology at the Polytechnic University of Marche (UNIVPM), Ancona, Italy (1995-2000) and obtained his PhD in 2006 at the Faculty of Medicine of the UNIVPM. After a post-doc period at Unit of Microbiology of the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Public Health (DBSPH) (2006-2016), he worked in departmental research as Assistant Professor from 2017 to 2024. He recived ESCMID Award for Young Researchers in 2010. Since 2024 Professor of Microbiology at Faculty of Medicine. His work focuses on mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance, as well as on the transmission routes of resistance and the mobile genetic elements involved.

Dr. Engeline van Duijkeren works as a senior scientist at the Centre of Infectious Disease Control of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands. She is a specialist in veterinary microbiology and an internationally respected expert in the field of antimicrobial resistance with focus on the epidemiology and mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance in staphylococci and Enterobacterales. Her main field of interest is the transmission of zoonotic bacteria between animals and humans. She has authored or co-authored over 150 research papers (google scholar h-index 60; scopus h-index 52).

Alison Mather completed a BSc (biomedical toxicology) and MSc (epidemiology) at the University of Guelph in Canada, followed by a PhD in epidemiology at the University of Glasgow. She then worked at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in pathogen genomics before moving to the University of Cambridge for a BBSRC Fellowship. In 2017 she became a Group Leader at Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB) and the University of East Anglia (UEA); currently, she is the Head of the Microbes and Food Safety Programme at QIB and Professor of Microbial Genomic Epidemiology in the Norwich Medical School at UEA. Her research interests are to understand the origins, evolution and transmission of foodborne bacteria, with a focus on bacteria that are resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

Dr. Mark G. Papich is a Distinguished Professor of Veterinary Pharmacology at North Carolina State University. He is a diplomate in the American College of Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology. He is a member of the United States Pharmacopeia Expert Committee on Antibiotics and the AVMA Committee on Antibiotics. Moreover, he is a member and past Chairholder of the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) Veterinary Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing subcommittee (VAST). He has authored/edited eight books on veterinary pharmacology and is author or co-author of over 280 research papers published in refereed journals and has authored over 140 book chapters, and review papers.

Frank Schreiber is a principal investigator at the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM). His team is working on the evolution and ecology of bacteria exposed to biocides and antimicrobial surfaces using experimental evolution, synthetic ecology, molecular microbiology and single-cell approaches. He performed his PhD with Dirk de Beer at the MPI for Marine Microbiology in Bremen on nitric oxide formation during nitrogen cycling in microbial communities. He held postdoctoral positions at the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) and ETH Zurich in the lab of Martin Ackermann, working on phenotypic heterogeneity in microbial metabolism.

Dr. Yu Zhang is a Professor, and currently serves as vice director of State Key Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She focuses on the antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in environment. She received a State Natural Science Award and a State Scientific and Technological Progress Award from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. She is the president of Committee of Microbial Ecology, Ecological Society of China, an expert of the pharmaceutical industry in China, and was a member of WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Antimicrobial Resistance (2020-2023).

Dr. med. vet. Sophie Kittler leads the Working Group for Food Molecular Biology and Antimicrobial Strategies at the Institute of Food Quality and Food Safety, as well as the Phage Technology Workgroup at the Center for Translational Studies at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover.
Her team focuses on the discovery, characterization, and selection of lytic phages suitable for antimicrobial treatment in veterinary medicine and various food-related applications.
She is a Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Public Health, a Veterinary Specialist in Food, and holds a Master’s degree in Veterinary Public Health.
Dr. Kittler is in charge of the subgroup on phages in veterinary medicine and food, which is part of the Trans-Phage Network within the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).