President

Diego Orzáez is a Scientific Researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and co-leads the Plant Genomics and Biotechnology Group at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Plant Biology (IBMCP) in Valencia, Spain. His lab specializes in Plant Synthetic Biology, focusing on genetically reprogramming plants to enhance the production of high-value bioproducts. Diego is also co-founder of two spin-off companies in the field of Molecular Farming.

Past President

Rima is currently a senior research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and holds an adjunct professor appointment at the Biology Department of Western University. Her research program is focused on producing veterinary subunit vaccines and antibodies in plants with the goal of oral administration to animals as an inexpensive method to treat and/or prevent animal diseases

Treasurer/Membership secretary

Julian holds the Hotung Chair of Molecular Immunology at St. George’s, University of London. He is also Director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity. He has worked in the field of Molecular Farming for vaccines and antibodies since 1991 and has a particular interest in developing products for major infectious diseases affecting developing countries.

Secretary

Marc-André is Chief Scientific Officer of Aramis Biotechnologies, a company developing new approaches to vaccines and therapeutics using plant-based expression and manufacturing technologies. He studied plant biochemistry and molecular biology at Laval University and worked for 24 years with Medicago.

Website Manager

Heribert is Professor for Plant Biotechnology and Metabolic Engineering at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. His main research interests are to understand how plants build complex metabolites with pharmacological properties and how to engineer novel pathways.

Communication Officer/

Chief Twit

Hadrien is Assistant Professor of Plant Virology and Biotechnology at the University of Nottingham, in the UK. Along with research on the molecular biology of plant viruses, Hadrien’s research focuses on plant transient expression vectors and their use for the production of high-value proteins. In particular, plant-produced virus-like particles (VLPs) and VLP-based technologies have been a big focus of his research.

Communication Officer

Marcello is a Senior Scientist at the Laboratory of Biotechnology, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA). His research is focused on the production of vaccines and diagnostic antigens for both human and veterinary applications. He has extensive experience in protein engineering of recombinant antibodies with antiviral/antitumor activity, and in their production and characterization using plant-based expression systems.

Communication Officer

Dr. Steinmetz holds the Leo and Trude Szilard Chancellor's Endowed Chair and is a Professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Steinmetz’s research program focuses on the engineering of plant virus-based nanomaterials targeting human, veterinary and plant health applications – toward a One Health concept. 

Communication Officer

Sandiswa is the Director of the Biopharming Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. Her research is on the production of high-value recombinant proteins. In particular, virus-like particles, nanoparticles, antibodies, and mRNA vaccines in plants.

Communication Officer

Carly is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Karas Lab at Western University, Canada.

Her research focuses on creating a synthetic lettuce chloroplast genome, advancing tools for large-scale plant genome engineering, and expanding the potential of plants as platforms for sustainable agriculture and molecular farming.

Society Awards Manager

Anneli is a Principal Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland working in Industrial Biotechnology and Food business area. Anneli´s expertise is in cellular agriculture particularly in valorisation of agri-food side streams as feedstock in microbial fermentation for both single cell protein and precision fermentation.  Anneli has a PhD Pharm. degree and holds the Associate professorship at the University of Helsinki in the pharmaceutical biology.

Student Board Member

Patrick is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Steinmetz Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on developing plant-derived nanomaterials for applications in human health and plant health, with a particular interest in enabling sustainable manufacturing both on Earth and in space.

Student Board Member

Vívian is a PhD candidate in Plant Biotechnology at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora – Brazil, with a strong interest in molecular farming and recombinant protein production in plants. Her work focuses on the expression of antibodies in Nicotiana benthamiana, combining molecular biology, genetic engineering and protein characterization approaches. 

Administrative Support

Sarah is a Science Support Administra tor at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK. She has worked supporting science for more than 20 years and has extensive experience in organising conferences and online events.