Frank Madeo is a professor at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz. He discovered and initiated the field of yeast apoptosis and has since then focused his research on the identification and characterization of conserved regulators and mechanisms of programmed cell death. At the same time, he investigates the function and control of pathways and processes underlying aging from yeast to mice, which recently led to the identification of spermidine as an autophagy inducer with anti-aging properties.

He is currently professor at the Faculty of Medicine (University of Paris Descartes) and additionally affiliated to the French Medical Research Council (INSERM), the Institut Gustave Roussy, and the Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou (Paris). His lab discovered the fundamental role of mitochondrial permeabilization in programmed cell death and has ever since continued to elucidate the role of mitochondria in pathological cell death. Additionally, he is interested in the regulation and function of autophagy in disease processes and the contribution of immune response to dying cancer cells.

He studied and worked at the University of Tübingen, the University of Washington, and the Technical University of Graz and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz. His research mainly focuses on deciphering the mechanisms underlying apoptotic and non-apoptotic programmed cell death employing yeast as a model organism. Furthermore, he is interested in devising pharmacological approaches to counteract aging-related cellular and organismal dysfunctions.

Sebastian studied Molecular Microbiology at the Technical University of Graz (Austria) and the Karl-Franzens-University Graz and did research at the Free University of Berlin (Germany). He obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology, focusing on intermittent fasting and the modulation of the polyamine metabolism as feasible strategies to prolong health- and lifespan at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences (University of Graz). His current research focus lies on gaining a deeper molecular understanding of therapeutic and pharmacological interventions that slow the process of aging, utilizing yeasts, flies and mice. He is also trained as a “Clinical Trial Specialist” (Medical University of Graz) and is involved in several clinical trials studying the effects of spermidine supplementation and therapeutic fasting in humans.

She studied molecular microbiology at the University of Graz (Austria) and is currently doing her PhD at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz. Her research focuses on metabolic anti-aging properties of dietary compounds. Furthermore, she is interested in the investigation of molecular mechanisms leading to Huntington’s disease using yeast as a model system.

He studied microbiology and biochemistry at the University of Graz (Austria) and the Technical University of Graz (Austria) and is currently doing his PhD at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz. His research focus lies on mitochondrial regulation of cell death and aging using yeast as a model. He is also investigating pharmacological approaches to decelerate age-associated malfunctions.

She researches and teaches at the University of Graz (Austria). Her main expertise lies on yeast cell death and her current focus of investigation is the identification and characterization of novel antifungal approaches. In addition, she has extensive experience in scientific communication.

Tanja studied Molecular Biology and Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Technology Graz (Austria). She then obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from University College London (UCL) and The Francis Crick Institute, London (UK) researching in vitro reconstitution of cell division with purified proteins. After a Postdoctoral stay at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona (Spain) she currently focuses on using her broad scientific background and experience in European Regulatory Affairs and Medical Devices.

She is a biochemist who obtained her degree from the Martin-Luther University Halle/Saale (Germany). She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Graz (Austria) with expertise in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic pathogens. Her research focus is on the identification and mechanistic characterization of novel antifungal compounds.

Thomas Heger studied biochemistry at the University of Tübingen (Germany), the University of Washington (Seattle, USA) as well as the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich (Germany). He obtained his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (Switzerland), in Cell- and Systems Biology and Virology where he specialized in software development.

Rafael de Cabo is a senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging (National Institutes of Health, USA) and an active member of the Board of the American Aging Association. His research focuses on the molecular pathways underlying the impact of caloric restriction on aging and investigates the effects and mechanisms of pharmacological and other anti-aging interventions.

Lorenzo Galluzzi studied at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and at the University of Paris Sud/Paris XI. He is a founding member of the European Research Institute for Integrated Cellular Pathology and an editor for several scientific journals in the field of oncology, among others Editor-in-Chief of “OncoImmunology”. His research focuses on several aspects of mitochondrial cell death, autophagy, oncogenic signaling pathways and tumor immunology. He is currently an Associate Professor at Fox Chase Cancer Center (USA) and Temple University Graduate School (USA) as well as a Honorary Assistant Professor Adjunct at Yale School of Medicine (USA), a Faculty member of the Universities of Ferrara, Padova and Roma “La Sapienza” (Italy). In addition, he is an Associate Director of the European Academy for Tumor Immunology.

He is President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging (California, USA). During his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) in Leonard Guarentes laboratory, he contributed decisively to the discovery of Sirtuins as aging modulators. His current research involves nutrient signaling pathways linked to dietary restriction, particularly the TOR pathway. He also studies A-type nuclear lamins, which are targets for mutation in Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.

After working at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York) and the Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich, he is now a professor at the Institute for Genetics of the University of Cologne. His research interests concentrate on deciphering the (proteolytic) mechanisms of mitochondrial quality control using yeast and mice as model systems. In addition, he analyzes the pathogenic relevance of the mitochondrial proteolytic system, for instance in neurodegenerative disorders.

He is currently a professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology with a joint appointment in the department of Biological Sciences as well as serving as the director of the USC Longevity Institute. His research focuses on the elucidation of fundamental mechanisms and conserved molecular pathways of aging from yeast to mice and humans. He is equally interested in strategies to modulate such pathways to protect against or ameliorate the reaction to different stresses and aging-associated diseases, among others cancer and its chemotherapeutic treatment.

Chris Meisinger studied and obtained his PhD at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg and is currently a professor at the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Center of Biological Signaling Studies (University of Freiburg). His lab is interested in the mitochondrial proteome with emphasis on mitochondrial protein import pathways, signaling and turnover. Moreover, he investigates the role of mitochondria in the regulation of programmed cell death.

Thomas Nyström is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and a professor at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Gothenburg. Using the model organisms Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and mouse embryonic stem cells, his group investigates the molecular mechanisms governing cellular deterioration during aging. At the same time, he focuses on elucidating the processes by which aging phenotypes are abolished in the progeny during rejuvenation.

After studies at the Brigham Young University (Utah) and at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, he is now an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah and a member of the Nuclear Control of Cell Growth and Differentiation Program at Huntsman Cancer Institute. His research is centered upon deciphering the molecular factors involved in cellular metabolic control. This has led him to explore the mitochondrial proteome, metabolite-based allostery and energy-sensing pathways.

His research is now centered on yeast as an aging model, mitochondria, and NADPH oxidases.

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He is interested in the crosstalk between autophagy, aging and metabolism. Autophagy, a major cellular degradation pathway with often cytoprotective properties, has evolved as one of the primordial anti-aging mechanisms in various organisms. Both the aging process and autophagy are controlled by nutrient responsive signaling, but the mechanistic basis of regulation through metabolic circuitries remains largely elusive.

The Gourlay lab holds a strong interest in the role that actin plays in the control of homeostatic mechanisms that contribute to healthy ageing. Of particular interest are interactions between actin, mitochondria and signal transduction pathways that are crucial to cellular response to stress. The lab also uses yeast as a model eukaryote to study a number of aspects of cancer biology and the toxicity associated with protein aggregations linked to human disease.

His lab uses the budding yeast S. cerevisiae to dissect the genetic architecture of multiple traits related to ageing and cancer. In all aspects of his group’s research, natural variation in the budding yeast is exploited as a tool for understanding how a phenotype is genetically regulated.

Beidong Liu is an Associate Professor/Docent in Cell and Molecular Biology at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Gothenburg (GU), Sweden. He also works as a director of the Center for Large-scale cell-based screening at the Faculty of Science at GU. His research focuses on investigating the mechanisms controling protein aggregation and stress granule formation, and further deciphering their functional roles in aging and aging-related diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration.

Ludovico's lab uses the eukaryotic budding yeast model to gain new insights into cell stress response, including cell survival and cell death decisions. Research in her lab is particularly focused on the impact that cell decisions have on ageing and life span. Her group is also investigating the toxic effects of human protein-related diseases. Current projects and interests include mitochondrial bioenergetics and metabolic control of cell death, reactive oxygen species signaling and their relevance for autophagy and cell fate upon stress.

She’s an associated professor at the Department of Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Rome "Sapienza" (Italy). She has expertise in yeast genetics and molecular biology. Among her studies, she has shown a relationship between mRNA metabolism and the onset of apoptosis and chronological aging. She has also demonstrated the involvement of yeast caspase in the variation of mitochondrial morphology during the apoptotic process and the role of mitochondrial morphology genes during aging. She currently also uses yeast to study the effect of human gene expression and new uncharacterized molecules on longevity and cell death.

Heinz D. Osiewacz is a professor at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt/ Main (Germany). Using the fungal model systems Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Podospora anserina his group investigates the molecular basis of organism aging with special emphasis on the role of mitochondria. His lab’s studies have led to the demonstration of an impact of various molecular pathways like apoptosis, autophagy, proteostasis, mitochondrial dynamics, and mtDNA instability on aging and lifespan control.

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Among organelles of the yeast cell, vacuoles begin to deteriorate in a very early stage of aging. As such, he is focusing on the contribution of late endosome-vacuolar membrane trafficking to the aging of the yeast cell.

Vladimir Titorenko is a professor at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). His group investigates molecular mechanisms underlying cellular aging, survival and death in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He also uses yeast as a model organism for identifying novel longevity-extending and anti-tumor natural compounds as well as for elucidating the evolution of longevity regulation mechanisms within ecosystems.

The Tyler lab focuses on analyses of the influence of chromatin assembly and disassembly on genomic processes and aging, predominantly in budding yeast.

Marina Vai is a full professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). She has long been interested in the biogenesis of the fungal cell wall with particular emphasis on a family of [beta]1,3-glucanosyltransferases of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Her current laboratory projects are mainly centered on yeast chronological aging and the underlying metabolic pathways.

Ida van der Klei is a professor in Molecular Cell Biology at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). Her group studies various aspects of peroxisome biology in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Hansenula polymorpha), including peroxisome function, biogenesis and dynamics. In addition, she studies peroxisomal quality control processes such as peroxisomal proteases and pexophagy as well as the role of peroxisomes in ageing.

He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Biology and an Instructor of Theology at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island (USA). He earned his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Leonard Guarente at M.I.T. where he was a pre-doctoral fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and his S.T.L. from the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. At the present time, he is completing a Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). His laboratory is investigating the genetics of programmed cell death using the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans as model organisms.

Kathryn Ayscough's lab works on understanding the mechanism and regulation of endocytosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Her group has a particular interest in how the actin cytoskeleton is able to stablize the endocytic site and drive invagination of the plasma membrane and, also in how the dynamin-like protein Vps1 co-operates with amphiphysins to bring about scission of the endocytic vesicle.

She has been particularly interested on the role of mitochondria in yeast apoptosis induced by acetic acid and ceramide with special focus on the elucidation of mechanisms underlying mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization and release of apoptogenic factors. She has also been exploiting the yeast heterologous expression system to study regulation of mammalian apoptosis components, such as members of the Bcl-2 family. More recently, she has been investigating the role of the vacuole and its crosstalk with mitochondria during apoptosis. To validate their findings with the yeast model system, mammalian cell lines have been used.

Birthe Fahrenkrog is a professor at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). Her lab has been identifying apoptotic regulators conserved in yeast and is engaged in their characterization. At the same time, she is interested in epigenetic regulation of apoptotic cell death in S. cerevisiae and humans.

Besides hydrolytic enzymes and fungal biotechnology, his lab focuses on the study of yeast apoptosis mediated by the overexpression of p53 human gene. His group also investigates the molecular status and the epigenetics of cancer genes in Tunisian patients.

His group at the Institute of Biomembranes and Bioenergetics of the National Research Council (Bari, Italy) uses the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism to study cell death and stress response to identify new regulatory compounds/processes. He is interested in mitochondrial signaling and metabolism that regulate cell life and death decisions and in the use of yeast to study the mechanisms of action of cancer susceptibility genes.

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His lab focuses its research on the involvment of the Ras signaling pathway in yeast apoptosis and survival and on the role played by active Ras in mitochondrial functions. Another relevant point of his work is the intracellular localization of the Ras/cAMP components and the evaluation of these elements (Ras-GTP, cAMP, PKA) in single cells.

Lynn Megeney is a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Ottawa (Ottawa, Canada). The Megeney research group discovered the conserved non-death role of apoptotic proteins and pathways from yeast to mammals. The Megeney group continues to investigate the essential role that caspases/metacaspases play in cell differentiation, adaptation and proteostasis.

Her lab investigates how cell polarity and asymmetry are established using budding yeast as a model organism. Her group’s current projects focus on a GTPase signaling pathway involved in polarity establishment; assembly and asymmetrical positioning of a macromolecular complex that specifies a growth site; development of mathematical modeling and empirical testing of morphogenesis; and role of small GTPases in the oxidative stress response and cell death.

Patrick Rockenfeller´s research focuses on the identification of lipotoxic cell death and autophagy pathways in yeast. He is particularly interested in the lipid species and mechanisms which induce/regulate cell death and/or autophagy.

His research focuses on the study of programmed cell death (PCD) in yeast and filamentous fungi focusing on PCD networks in fungi and on the role of PCD in fungal pathogenesis.

Kevin Tan is an associate professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained his PhD at NUS and pursued his postdoctoral research at The Rockefeller University (USA). His research focuses on understanding cell death mechanisms in parasitic protozoa, with an emphasis on malaria parasites. His group was the first to report on lysosome-mediated cell death in malaria parasites. With a deeper understanding of such mechanisms, he is developing new tools for drug discovery in order to identify novel and effective therapeutics.

Her main research activities are related to drug discovery, especially in the anti-infective field (including antifungal and antibiofilm compounds) as well as in the field of anti-apoptosis, the latter related to disorders such as Wilson's disease and metabolic syndrome. For this diverse set of drug discovery tasks, her lab uses yeast as a model organism. Antifungal/antibiofilm and anti-apoptotic compounds are subsequently further evaluated in appropriate human cell lines, in lower model organisms (e.g. worm or zebrafish) and in higher eukaryotic organisms (rodent). A major part of her research focuses on unraveling the mode of action of the antifungal/antibiofilm and anti-apoptotic compounds using yeast as a model organism.

He prepared a PhD thesis at the University of Munich (Germany) that was presented to the University of Porto (Portugal), where he is currently a professor of Molecular Genetics at ICBAS-Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar. He has long been interested in mitochondrial biogenesis and bioenergetics and its relevance for disease. His current research interests focus on the molecular characterization of novel proteins and metabolic pathways involved in programmed cell death, including the mitochondrial connection.

Richard Zhao is a professor of pathology, microbiology-immunology and human virology at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine (USA). His laboratory developed a fission yeast model to study HIV-1, especially the role of HIV-1 viral protein R (Vpr) in cell cycle G2/M regulation, cell death/apoptosis and viral pathogenesis. A current research interest is the development of high throughput fission yeast platforms for screening of anti-HIV drugs, including HIV-1 Vpr and drug-resistant proteases.

Anand K Bachhawat has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Calcutta (India) and has done post-doctoral studies at the MGH Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston (USA) and the Department of Biology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (USA). He is currently a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali (India). His research interests are in glutathione and cysteine homeostasis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Marc Blondel is Professor of Cell Biology at the Medical School of the University of Brest (France). He has expertise in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) genetics and molecular biology. His group develops yeast models for various human diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders (especially prion-based diseases), cancers and mitochondrial diseases. The basic idea is to obtain a yeast phenotype that is relevant for the considered disorders and then to look for modifiers of this phenotype. These modifiers can be positive or negative (that is, they may either suppress or exacerbate the phenotype) and they can be drugs or genes or any other biological or chemical moiety. These modifiers are then validated on mammalian cell-based models and then, if possible, in vivo.

His group studies the mechanism of Tat-dependent transport of proteins across bacterial membranes. Tat transport enables the cells to transport fully folded, often even cofactor-containing and oligomeric proteins across energy-transducing membranes, thereby allowing important cellular functions such as many respiratory pathways and photosynthesis. It is also required for periplasmic maturation of the siderophore pyoverdine that is produced by fluorescent pseudomonads, which became a second research focus of the lab. As the Tat system imposes stress on cytoplasmic membranes, the group is also investigating sensing and signaling of membrane stress by the Psp system.

His research focuses on the elucidation of the multiplicity role and the apparent redundancy of CDKs in the control of eukaryotic cell cycle. His group is currently involved in the study of mechanisms that modulate cyclins stability and how nutrients control the cell cycle molecular machinery.

Paola Coccetti is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). Her group has a long-standing experience in the field of signal transduction and cell cycle regulation by using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a eukaryotic model organism. Her current research is mainly focused on understanding the interplay among proliferation, metabolism and energy homeostasis. Several omic approaches are combined to unveil the key molecular mechanisms of these networks as well as their potential in therapeutics.

The goals of her research are to investigate the physiology of industrial microorganisms, to unravel the molecular mechanisms that drive their response to diverse environmental stimuli and to identify the evolutionary circumstances that have shaped their genomes. Although part of the knowledge generated is used to modify microbes and improve their properties for industrially-relevant applications, her research has contributed to the understanding of fundamental aspects of microbial physiology and metabolism, and more specifically of yeasts. One of the major strengths and field of expertise of her group resides in the implementation of advanced cultivation tools that enable tightly controlled and highly reproducible growth of microbes, like the chemostat and retentostat systems. These tools allow the achievement of unique and highly relevant physiological status that cannot be reached by any standard cultivation tool (i.e. shake-flask and plates).

Biswadip Das is an Associate Professor at the Department of Life Science and Biotechnology at Jadavpur University (India). His research interests are focused on quality control of eukaryotic gene expression, including mRNA decay and surveillance.

Jesus de la Cruz is currently Professor at the Department of Genetics, University of Seville (Spain) and Group Leader at the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBIS). His laboratory works on understanding the mechanism of ribosome biogenesis in eukaryotic cells using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as model organism. His group is currently focused on the functional analysis of RNA helicases that contribute to yeast ribosome biogenesis. In addition, his laboratory is interested in understanding the precise role of ribosomal proteins in ribosomal subunit assembly.

His laboratory is interested in organelle turnover, with particular focus on the nucleus and mitochondria in the yeast S. cerevisiae. In addition, his group explores autophagic responses of mammalian cells to bacterial infection.

His lab’s research focuses on the regulation and quality control of proteins by selective degradation, for which his group uses Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system. Specific topics include the role of chaperones in ubiquitin-dependent proteolytic quality control, the regulation of proteins by sumoylation and SUMO-dependent proteolytic targeting, ubiquitin-dependent and ubiquitin-independent mechanisms in the control of polyamine homeostasis, as well as the regulation and biogenesis of the proteasome, the central player in most of these processes.

The work in Dr. Downs‘ laboratory addresses metabolic integration using a microbial model system. Her team is interested in metabolic regulation including robustness, pathway recruitment and endogenous metabolic stress and its control.

He is a mycologist working at Agroscope in Switzerland. The research in the Freimoser Lab focuses on naturally occurring, antagonistic yeasts, the molecular mechanisms underlying their antifungal activities, and their application as plant protection agents.

His work involves diverse lines of research. (i) The heterologous expression of proteins involved in human diseases, genome-wide screening, and human cDNA library screening to identify functional interactors of proteins involved in breast cancer and melanoma. The rationale for this work is that many human disease-associated genes have highly conserved yeast counterparts (50%) and therefore Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been proven to be a powerful tool for the identification of protein networks. (ii) Development of functional assays to characterize mutations in breast cancer: A “yeast-based recombination assay” was developed to assess the functionality of newly identified BRCA1/2 missense variants. This is a very simple assay that can give information about cancer biology and therapy responsiveness and help genetic counselors in the choice of therapeutic treatment. (iii) Assembly of gene therapy vector in S. cerevisiae: the group is exploring the feasibility to produce a recombinant viral vector based on adeno associated virus (rAAV) in yeast.

Research in the Görke lab aims to unravel novel principles underlying signal-perception, -transduction and cellular regulation in the model organism Escherichia coli. We focus on the roles of small regulatory RNAs, mechanisms achieving specificity in RNA turnover and on the functions of protein-protein interaction for regulation. Currently, an intricate regulatory circuit controlling cell envelope synthesis at the post-transcriptional level is investigated and mined for novel antimicrobial targets.

His research is focused on the phenotypic and genotypic analysis of industrial yeasts to understand Saccharomyces cerevisiae adaptation to important industrial fermentative processes such as the elaboration of wine, beer, cider, etc. His lab uses different high-throughput techniques to unravel these adaptation mechanisms to environmental and nutritional changes (temperature, nitrogen availability, vitamins, etc.). A global aim is to correlate genomic features of different yeasts with phenotypic differences of industrial interest. His group is also performing several programs of genetic improvement of industrial yeasts by non-GMO techniques (hybridization, engineering evolution, etc.).

His research focuses on the genetics, cell biology and physiology of signal transduction pathways in different yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Kluyveromyces lactis, Hanseniaspora uvarum). His lab studies the mechanisms of cell wall integrity (CWI) signaling through a conserved MAPK cascade, including the dynamics and mechanics of the CWI sensors within microdomains of the plasma membrane. Moreover, his group is interested in the relation to carbohydrate signaling and central metabolism. Applied aspects, which derive from these subjects for medical and biotechnological use, are within the range of his lab’s interests.

He is a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, with a long time interest in protein transport, molecular chaperones and prions. Curre

The Labbe research group has developed a productive yeast model for investigating copper (Cu), iron (Fe), and heme metabolism at the molecular level. Because yeasts such as Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Saccharomyces cerevisiae provide a genetically tractable model that permits the drawing of parallels with other eukaryotic living systems, our studies have led us to make significant advances in understanding how cells acquire Cu, Fe, and heme. These studies have contributed to the identification of defects in Cu, Fe, and heme homeostasis that underlie physiological abnormalities as well as the discovery of various strategies that pathogenic yeasts have evolved in order to “steal” Cu, Fe, and heme from their hosts.

Jun-Yi Leu is interested in the general principles and underlying molecular mechanisms of evolutionary adaptation and speciation. In addition, he investigates spatial regulation of proteins and structural dynamics of cellular compartments in quiescent cells.

He is interested in intracellular lipid traffic in yeast. His group has proposed that lipid traffic takes place at membrane contact sites, places where two organelles come into very close contact (10-20 nm) without fusing. S cerevisiae is an excellent model for studying contact sites, as it is one of the few organisms where any of the structural components of contact sites have been identified, allowing their genetic manipulation.

Dr. Liebman’s lab helped establish the field of yeast prions. Her laboratory first showed that chaperones are required for prion propagation, that yeast prions can exist in different variants and that the presence of one prion can promote the appearance of a heterologous prion. Her laboratory is now focused on using yeast as a model system to study protein misfolding diseases.

Roland Lill, Philipps-Universität Marburg (Germany) is interested in the biosynthesis of iron-sulfur clusters and their insertion into apoproteins in eukaryotic cells. Iron-sulfur proteins play crucial roles in energy metabolism, protein synthesis, DNA replication and repair, and in many central metabolic reactions. Their maturation requires the ISC assembly machinery in mitochondria, and the CIA machinery in the cytosol. Impairment of the biogenesis process is associated with a number of severe diseases.

Marc Meneghini earned his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon (USA) studying C. elegans embryonic cell fate patterning before moving to budding yeast as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (USA). In his own lab at the University of Toronto (Canada), he studies cell biological, genetic, and epigenetic control of mitonuclear and vacuolar regulation throughout the yeast lifecycle.

He is a Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). His research concentrates on the function, regulation and trafficking of membrane transporters in yeast. He recently deciphered the function of Golgi-localized transporters involved in calcium and manganese homeostasis in yeast as well as in human cells.

He is the head of the cellular dynamics project which focusses on the "polyomic" and mathematical analyses of the crosstalk between metabolism and transcription, primarily utilising continuous cultures of brewers' yeast. He also has collaborations analysing similar crosstalk mechanisms in other fungi, cyanobacteria and Escherichia coli. He is particularly interested in periodic temporal events, e.g., the respiratory/metabolic oscillation, where he has played an important role in developing the field.

His interest focuses on the evolution of microbial organisms and their genomes. Among others, he is enlarging bacterial spheroplasts and protoplasts for microinjection of heterogeneous or designed genomic DNAs.

His research interests are focused on the understanding of the molecular mechanisms that lead to neurodegeneration in diseases such as Parkinson's, Huntington's, or Alzheimer's disease. These diseases are intimately associated with protein misfolding and aggregation in specific regions of the brain. Because the molecular pathways involved in protein homeostasis are highly conserved, his group employs a wide variety of model organisms, from the simple but powerful budding yeast to mammalian cell culture and mice, to study the origin of the problems.

Brigitte Pertschy is a group leader at the Institute for Molecular Biosiences at the University of Graz (Austria). Her lab works on the synthesis pathway of eukaryotic ribosomes using yeast as a model organism. A current research focus is the characterization of the path of ribosomal proteins from their site of synthesis in the cytoplasm to their ribosome assembly site in the nucleus. In addition, the lab investigates the function of several non-ribosomal assembly factors in ribosome biogenesis.

Her laboratory studies the mechanisms controlling mitotic progression and cell division using the budding yeast S. cerevisiae as a model organism. Her group is mainly interested at understanding how mitotic processes are regulated in order to preserve genome stability and prevent the occurrence of aneuploidy. Since cytokinesis defects have been lately emerging as a major source of aneuploidy, her lab is studying how cytokinesis is regulated during the cell cycle and how it is coupled to nuclear division. In this context her group is focusing its attention on the regulation of the “mitotic exit network”, which triggers mitotic exit, and of the cytoskeletal proteins septins, which in yeast are essential for cytokinesis. Another longstanding interest of the lab is how the spindle assembly checkpoint ensures balanced chromosome segregation. Her group has identified and is characterizing factors that allow mitotic slippage when the checkpoint is not satisfied.

His group`s research goal is to understand what determines when cells begin a new round of cell division. Knowing which cellular pathways, and how these pathways, affect the machinery of cell division will allow modulations of cell proliferation, because such processes dictate how fast cells multiply.

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Cellular life depends on a network of biochemical reaction, known as the metabolic network. Work in the Ralser lab concentrates on defining basic biological principles that underlie and shape cellular metabolism. These include the origins of metabolism in evolution, its flexibility in stress situations, its regulation through thousands of gene-metabolism interactions, and cellular consequences that result from its chemistry-driven nature.

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Research in the Rosenzweig lab is aimed at illuminating the evolution of complex traits that augment biodiversity, control cell lifespan and drive major transitions in the history of life. His lab’s goals are to understand how changes in genome architecture alter global patterns of gene expression, whether such changes explain the physiology and behavior of novel genotypes, and the extent to which adaptation is shaped by trade-offs and constraints. Because all major evolutionary transitions require cooperative behavior, his group is especially keen to discover genetic changes that promote this trait. The lab’s approach to these goals is experimental evolutionary genomics using as models the bacteria Escherichia coli and Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, the Baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the unicellular alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

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Reiko Sugiura is currently Professor of Molecular Pharmacogenomics at Kindai University (Japan), where she is also the Dean of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Currently, her lab focuses on the molecular mechanisms orchestrating calcium signaling with a special focus on the PKC/MAPK signaling and the calcineurin signaling pathways in fission yeast. She also developed “a novel drug screen system for anti-cancer compounds” based on the chemical genetic approaches in S. pombe.

After PhD studies at KU Leuven (Belgium), he spent a post-doctoral period at Yale University (USA), and became appointed as professor at the KU Leuven and later also as Director of the Department of Molecular Microbiology of the life sciences research institute VIB (Belgium). His research focuses on the mechanisms involved in nutrient sensing and signaling in yeast and the polygenic analysis of complex traits for the development of superior industrial yeast strains.

His major research goals are to understand the mechanism of propagation and the phenotypic impact of prions in fungi, especially in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The approaches his lab takes are primarily in vivo, exploiting a wide range of genetic and cell biology tools to probe the behaviour of this unique class of epigenetic elements both in laboratory and ‘wild’ strains of yeast. A particular focus is on the cellular factors (e.g. molecular chaperones) that contribute to both the de novo generation and continued propagation of the [PSI+] prion.

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Luis Aragon is currently a Professor at Imperial College London (UK) and Group Leader at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre. His laboratory studies molecular mechanisms orchestrating the equal and faithful segregation of chromosomes during cellular division. His group is focused on the analysis of protein complexes that mediate chromosome structure and segregation, namely cohesin, condensin and a novel complex, the SMC5/6 complex. In addition, his laboratory is interested in regulatory networks that operate to coordinate different aspects of the chromosome metabolism, including DNA replication, DNA repair and chromosome segregation with cell cycle progression.

His laboratory, at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, is working on the genetics of fission yeast. His team studies how fission yeast changes its mating-type and how it maintains the integrity of its genome during quiescence.

Jürg Bähler is currently a Professor at University College London (UK). His laboratory studies genome regulation during cellular quiescence, ageing and stress response using fission yeast as a model system. His group applies multiple genetic, computational and genome-wide approaches for systems-level understanding of complex relationships between genotype, phenotype and environment, including roles of genome variation and evolution, transcriptome regulation, and non-coding RNAs.

The Bailis laboratory investigates the genetic and molecular control of eukaryotic genome stability using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. His group has focused primarily on responses by the homologous recombination machinery to defined DNA double-strand breaks, defective DNA replication and telomere uncapping. This work suggests that the genetic control of the balance between homologous recombination mechanisms that conserve and those that alter chromosome structure is a critical determinant of genome stability.

Our research focuses on understanding regulatory mechanisms of heterochromatin formation in the fission yeast S. pombe. Lately, we have been studying the spatial regulation of heterochromatin boundaries by ubiquitin-dependent protein degradation (‘chromatin sculpting’) and the intranuclear positioning of silent chromatin by the conserved inner nuclear membrane protein Lem2. In addition, we are dissecting regulator pathways and networks of silent chromatin using functional genomics and systems approaches.

The localization of DNA within the nucleus is controlled and has important effects on nuclear functions. The Brickner lab uses yeast and metazoan models to 1) define the molecular mechanisms by which DNA can be directed to different subnuclear environments and 2) determine the functional significance of subnuclear localization of DNA on transcription and chromatin structure.

Carlo V. Bruschi was an NIH post-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) of the University of California at Berkeley (USA), then a tenure-track assistant professor and later a tenured associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology of the East Carolina University School of Medicine (USA). Since 1990 he is a senior scientist and group leader of the Yeast Molecular Biology Group of ICGEB in Trieste (Italy), where he has pioneered the field of chromosomal translocations induced in vivo, by designing the bridge-induced translocation (BIT) system to construct ad hoc translocations at pre-defined genomic loci, using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as eukaryotic model system.

An engineer by training with strong background in mathematical modeling and computational analysis as well as microbiology and microbial ecology, Dr. Bucci combines modeling and experimentation to investigate the population dynamics of multispecies microbial communities. Dr. Bucci‘s laboratory focuses its research in inferring and predicting microbiome ecology in response to external perturbations and its association to human health and disease from high-throughput multi-omics data. Using these unique approaches, Bucci and collaborators discovered the secondary-bile acids-mediated protection of Clostridium scindens against Clostridium difficile, identified microbiome response to anti-TB treatment, and optimized microbial consortia with respect to regulatory T-cell induction. Recently, Dr. Bucci’s laboratory developed the first synthetically-engineered probiotic that inhibits pathogenic Salmonella after sensing Salmonella-induced signature of intestinal inflammation.

Rita Cha’s laboratory works on the impact of cellular metabolism on DNA/chromosomal processes. Using S. cerevisiae as a model organism, her group investigates the molecular mechanisms governing nuclear and mitochondrial genome maintenance in response to changes in the metabolic state of a cell.

Michael Chang is an Assistant Professor at the European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing within the University of Groningen and the University Medical Center Groningen (The Netherlands). His research group uses the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to study telomere maintenance and genome integrity as it relates to cancer and aging.

He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, National University of Singapore. His lab employs the fission yeast model to study human chemotherapeutic drug resistance mechanisms. He also studies chromosome biology, genomic stability, centromere, epigenetic inheritance and DNA damage response in fission yeast.

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The Klein lab studies pathways used for DNA damage avoidance, focusing on regulation of the Rad51 recombinase through the action of DNA translocases and helicases. The lab is also studying the consequences of rNMP misincorporation into DNA and the factors that process the damage as a consequence of this error. The yeast system S. cerevisiae is used as a model for the human disease Aicardi Goutieres syndrome, which arises from defects in processing aberrant nucleic acids.

The Kupiec lab is interested in the mechanisms that guard the integrity of the genome. Our research includes subjects such as DNA repair and recombination, DNA damage checkpoint response and telomere biology.

The Lue laboratory studies the mechanisms of telomere protection and telomere maintenance in a variety of fungal model systems as well as in human cancer cells.

His lab is focused on developing and applying genomic technologies to investigate the nature of gene-drug interactions. Some of his group’s current projects include: massively parallel identification of drug targets in Saccharomyces and Candida, screening transposon libraries of large clinical microbe collections for virulence determinants, and understanding how chromatin structure influences gene expression in diverse environments.

His group uses Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model to study eukaryotic DNA replication and repair mechanisms maintaining genome stability. Focal areas include DNA double-strand break repair and replication fork recovery under replication stress conditions. Using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing, the group translates mechanistic insight directly from yeast to human studies, exploring potential biomedical implications in cancer cell models.

His current research is mainly focused on the meiotic recombination checkpoint in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This surveillance mechanism is triggered by defects in chromosome synapsis and/or meiotic recombination and blocks or delays meiotic cell cycle progression to prevent aberrant chromosome segregation and the formation of aneuploid gametes. His group investigates this checkpoint pathway at several levels (sensors, adaptors, effectors and targets) with particular interest in deciphering the functional contribution of chromatin modifications to this evolutionarily-conserved meiotic quality control mechanism.

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Research in the Wellinger lab is focused on mechanisms governing chromosome stability using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as model organism. In particular, his group is interested in telomeres, their chromosome capping function and how they set themselves apart from other fortuitous chromosome ends. In addition, his lab investigates structure function relationships in the telomerase holo-enzyme, using the telomerase RNA as a starting point.

He has a PhD in Microbiology and Cell biology from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India) and has pursued post-doctoral training at UTMB, Galveston, Texas (USA). Currently, he is a senior scientist in the Infectious Disease Biology division at the Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar (India). His research interests focus on understanding the mechanisms of eukaryotic DNA replication, DNA damage response and Candida pathogenesis.

He is a full Professor in immunology at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1. His research team is within the International Center for Infectiology Research (CIRI) located in Lyon and affiliated to Inserm, CNRS, ENS-Lyon and UCB-Lyon1. The team is interested by deciphering the molecular regulation of autophagy, and the role of autophagy in the context of viral and bacterial infections in regards of pathogen life, cellular response, immune response, and development of intestinal-associated immunopathologies.

His work focuses on studying surface pellicles (a type of biofilms) in slow-growing mycobacteria, how this process is related to the immune response in the host, and how it helps mycobacteria to adapt to their environment.

The laboratory of Teresa Frisan is interested in understanding the role of bacterial genotoxins in acute and chronic bacterial infection. Bacterial genotoxins are relative new members of bacterial effectors, which cause DNA damage to the host cells. However, their role in the context of infections is still poorly characterized. Her group’s research activity is devoted to the development of in vivo, in vitro and ex vivo models to address this complex question. The scientific interests cover several aspects of the biology of this toxin family: from internalization to remodeling of the host microenvironment at cellular, tissue and systemic levels. Specifically, her lab is interested in assessing whether the toxins’ DANN-damaging activity and ability to promote genomic instability may be associated with tumor initiation/progression in persistent infections.

His research is mainly focused on the characterization of HIV antibodies and their effector functions including antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP). He is also very interested in the development of high throughput screening platforms to evaluate antibody immune responses in vaccinated or HIV-infected individuals.

Dr Dimitrios P. Kontoyiannis received his medical degree Summa Cum Laude from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece). He then did a post-doctoral research fellowship in Infectious Diseases at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (Texas, USA), followed by training in Internal Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston (Texas, USA) where he served as a Chief Resident. He was subsequently trained as a clinical fellow in Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and obtained a Master in Clinical Sciences from Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA). He spent 3 years at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Sciences as a fellow in the Harvard/MIT Clinical Investigators Training Program. He is currently the Frances King Black Endowed Professor and Deputy Head-Research in the Division of Internal Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and adjunct professor at Baylor College of Medicine and University of Houston (USA). His research work is in the area of experimental and clinical mycology, focusing on traditional (mouse) and mini-host (Drosophila) models of infection, antifungal drug resistance, pathogenesis, pharmacology and various aspects of epidemiology, diagnostics and treatment of fungal infections. He is the recipient of several national and institutional awards, has authored over 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts and invited to give over 100 lectures in international conferences and prestigious institutions in US and abroad.

His group’s research focuses on the interactions between fungal pathogens and their animal or plant hosts, with an emphasis on the characterization of virulence factors as well as aspects of host nutrition that influence pathogen gene expression. One of his team’s goals is to develop antifungal strategies that target mechanisms of iron uptake in fungal pathogens.

His laboratory is focused on understanding the mycobacterial physiology associated with phenotypic drug tolerance. His team is also interested in understanding the host pathways that are crucial for clearance/control of Mycobacteria inside macrophages.

Patrick Lomonte is a CNRS Research Director. His laboratory is affiliated to the Institut NeuroMyoGene (INMG) located in Lyon at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1. The team focuses its research on the comprehension of herpesviruses biology, and more particularly on herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) latency establishment and reactivation processes. Using HSV-1 as a model of study, he investigates the role of nuclear domains in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression and chromatin dynamics.

Javier Lopez-Garrido studies the cell biology of spore formation in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. He is particularly interested in understanding metabolic coupling between different cell types and cell shape homeostasis during sporulation.

Ian Macreadie is an Adjunct Professor of Edith Cowan University (Australia) and an Associate Professor of RMIT University (Australia). His background is in yeast mitochondrial genetics. His 24 years at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia) focused on vaccines, AIDS, malaria, drug resistance and Alzheimer's disease, all using yeast. At RMIT University he continues to utilise yeast as a model organism for the study of human health and disease.

He is a cell biologist and currently a CNRS research director. Dr. Méresse is interested in how intracellular bacteria (Salmonella, Brucella) manipulate and modify the functioning of infected cells to ensure their survival/replication. His research focuses on the role of the effector proteins that these bacteria inject into cells.

Her research combines microbiology and nanoscience in the pursuit of understanding how bacteria attach to abiotic surfaces to form biofilms with high antibiotic tolerance. Her group also develops new approaches to prevent biofilm through application of anti-adhesive polymer coatings, and to more effectively treat biofilm infections through targeted delivery of encapsulated antibiotics.

His laboratory studies how intracellular bacterial pathogens manipulate host cells to enable their survival and multiplication within their pathogen-containing vacuoles. His group has been focused on Chlamydia trachomatis and Legionella pneumophila that share a general virulence mechanism, consisting in the injection of effector proteins into host cells through specialized type III or type IV secretion systems. They mostly study the molecular mode of action of Chlamydia and Legionella effector proteins. The expectation is that the increase in basic knowledge his lab achieves could be used to develop new strategies to combat infectious diseases.

His research is focused on the interactions between bacterial pathogens and the innate immune system. In particular, his group has worked recently on the effect of infection on cell signaling by Nod-like receptors and Toll-like receptors.

She is currently a Research Scientist at Colorado State University (USA). Her group’s research focuses mainly on the biosynthesis of the cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. We employ a combination of various biochemical, analytical and molecular biology techniques to unravel pathways in the biosynthesis of cell wall polysaccharides and lipoglycans, which play critical part in the physiology and pathogenicity of mycobacteria.

Fulvio Reggiori is an Associate Professor at the Department of Cell Biology of the University Medical Center Utrecht (The Netherlands). He is investigating the regulation and mechanism of autophagy using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. His laboratory is also studying the autophagy-pathogen interaction mostly in the context of viral infections.

Andrew is currently Professor of Molecular Microbiology at the School of Infection and Immunity (University of Glasgow). His research is focused on how host metabolites influence bacterial behaviour and how this affects when and where pathogens cause infections. The main model organism is Escherichia coli and its diverse pathotypes. Understanding of the basis to infection is also applied to novel intervention strategies such as small molecule inhibitors of virulence determinants.

The group of Thomas Rudel investigates pathogenicity mechanisms of different microorganisms, including the major human pathogens Chlamydia, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Staphylococcus aureus. His research focuses on the subversion of innate immune signaling by these pathogens and on the interface of infection and cancer.

Dr. Schilds main interests lie in bacterial pathogenesis and bacterial adaptation in response to environmental and host conditions as well as in biogenesis and physiological roles of bacterial membrane vesicles.

Barbara S. Sixt is interested in the role of programmed cell death in the cell autonomous defense against the obligate intracellular pathogen Chlamydia. During her PhD work at the University of Vienna (Austria) she studied environmental chlamydiae that naturally infect protozoa or arthropods; including their proteomic and metabolic features, as well as their ability to block host cell death. After completing 3 years of postdoctoral training at Duke University (NC, USA), she is currently affiliated with INSERM U1138 (France). Her most recent research focuses on the application of emerging genetic tools for Chlamydia to identify and characterize bacterial factors that counteract host cell death and other branches of the cell autonomous defense.

Novel peptide-based antimicrobials are of great interest to his group. Whether ribosomally or non-ribosomally synthesized, these compounds often contain complex structures and systems leading to their production. His research is aimed at understanding the microbial physiology leading to the production of these compounds and the microbial physiology/mechanism of action of how these compounds target microorganisms.

Dr. Tenguria’s research focuses on the investigation of how L. monocytogenes infection causes gastroenteritis and on the development of therapeutic prevention strategies against gastroenteritis in L. monocytogenes-infected patients. In addition, he is interested in the role of NOD-Like Receptor (NLR) family pyrin domain containing 11 (NLRP11) in sensing cytoplasmic microbial danger signals in response to bacterial infections or bacterial components in order to delineate inflammasome activation mechanisms in mouse models and/or in human.

His research delves into the intricate dynamics of the gut microbiome and its consequential impacts on human health and disease. Through a multidisciplinary methodology, he seeks to decode the complexities of microbial communities, biofilms, and secretion systems.

Dr. Nilgun E. Tumer has pioneered the use of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model to study the mechanism of action of ribosome inactivating proteins (RIPs) such as ricin, pokeweed antiviral protein, Shiga toxins and trichothecene mycotoxins produced by Fusarium graminearum, which causes Fusarium head blight (FHB). RIPs depurinate the α-sarcin/ricin loop (SRL) of the large rRNA and inhibit protein synthesis. Fusarium mycotoxins such as dioxynivalenol (DON) accumulate in wheat and barley and are major problems for food safety. Dr. Tumer investigates how RIPs interact with ribosomes, inhibit translation and cause cell death and how trichothecene mycotoxins affect mitochondria.

His laboratory is interested in the mechanisms and evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

His lab (at Kansas State University, USA) studies Candida abicans hyphae-related virulence including invasive candidiasis, fungal-bacterial interactions, mono-species, and mixed-species biofilms, and their inhibition by bioactive natural product small molecules. His group is also interested in understanding the development of multidrug resistance by drug-efflux pumps in pathogenic bacteria.

He has extensive experience in the study of clinical and molecular epidemiology of intestinal infections caused by diarrheagenic Escherichia coli (DEC), mainly Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (EHEC/STEC), enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) and adherent invasive E. coli (AIEC). Regarding STEC, his team has performed immunoproteomics analyses, resulting in the detection of novel antigens that are being assessed as a STEC vaccine candidate with the potential to protect against a wide spectrum of serotypes (LEE-positive or LAA-positive). In brief, he has been working in topics related to microbial pathogenesis, molecular epidemiology, comparative genomics, virulence factor characterization and new mobile genetic elements like pathogenicity Islands (PAIs) in clinical isolates of STEC/ETEC/AIEC strains.

He is a full professor for Internal Medicine at the Medical University of Innsbruck (Austria) and director of the Department of Internal Medicine II (Infectious Diseases, Immunology, Rheumatology, Pneumology). His research interest focuses on host-pathogen interaction with a special emphasis on the role of macrophages, innate immune genes and the control of infection with intracellular bacteria, the anemia of chronic inflammation, and regulatory interactions between metal/iron metabolism and innate /adaptive immune function and pathogen virulence/persistance.

Dr. Yang has focused on investigating molecular mechanisms in innate immune signaling, i.e., Toll-like receptors- and Dectin-1-dependent pathways, phagocytes as well as molecular and cellular pathogenesis of intracellular microbes infection, especially on Mycobacteria, Listeria, Candida, Toxoplasma, and Influenza infection.

His lab is interested in bacterial virulence factors, the identification and interactions with host cells as well as in innate immune cell responses to Salmonella Typhimurium, enterohemorrhagic E. coli and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

He obtained his DVM at LMU Munich (Germany) and did his postdoc training at Duke University (USA). His group focuses on the fundamental aspects of bacterial toxins from Bacillus cereus and other bacterial pathogens. He is also interested in developing short, linear antibacterial peptides inspired antibiotics to target multidrug resistant bacteria.

His work focuses on studying the responses of microbial communities and isolated microbes to external stress such as antimicrobial agents. Understanding how these extracellular stressors affect our microbiome will provide critical biological insight into the development of dysbiosis, disease, and antibiotic resistance. Relying on recent advances in high-throughput DNA and RNA sequencing, his lab is studying the effects of antimicrobial agents on these highly complex microbial communities to identify microbial mechanisms that lead to improved antimicrobial tolerance and the development of resistance.

Prof. Moya studied Biology and Philosophy simultaneously at the University of València (Spain), obtaining a PhD in Biology in 1983, and a PhD in Philosophy in 1988. He was Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California (Davis, USA), and an Invited Professor at the University of California (Irvine, USA). In 1986, he created the Evolutionary Genetics Research Group at the Department of Genetics of the University of València, where he is a Professor of Genetics since 1993. Prof. Moya was the promoter of the Cavanilles Institut of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology at the University of València, the Astrobiology Center (CSIC-INTA) and the Public Health Research Center (CSISP), now integrated in the Valencian Region Foundation for the Promotion of Health (FISABIO). Currently, he chairs an Institutional Professorship between FISABIO and the University of València. Prof. Moya is the author of approximately five hundred publications about Genetics, Evolution and the Philosophy of Biology. He is involved in the study of the human microbiome under an evolutionary and system biology perspective. Prof. Moya is a founding member of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, the Spanish Society of Virology and the Spanish Society of Evolutionary Biology, for which he is the current President. He received the “Ciutat de Barcelona” award (1996), the “Diario Médico” award (2006), the “2012 National Award of Genetics” (2012), the “2013 Lilly Award in Biomedical Research”, and the “Mexico Award in Science and Technology” (2015). He is also fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1998.

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Vítor Costa is currently a professor at the University of Porto (Portugal). His research focuses on signalling pathways that control mitochondrial function and redox homeostasis in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. His group is currently interested on the role of sphingolipid signalling in cell death under stress conditions and during cell ageing.

Marcel Deponte is currently working as an independent group leader and at the Department of Parasitology at the Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg (Germany). He is interested in comparative protein biochemistry with an emphasis on enzymology and molecular parasitology. His group compares the mechanisms of redox enzymes as well as mitochondrial protein import machineries from yeast, the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum and the kinetoplastid parasite Leishmania tarentolae.

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Paola Goffrini is a researcher at the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Parma (Italy). She has carried out research in the fields of yeast genetics and molecular biology with particular attention being paid to the study of the nucleo-mitochondrial relationship, on which many cellular processes depend. More recently, her research has aimed at defining yeast as a model system for approaching the molecular bases of human mitochondrial disorders as well as the connection between aging and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Johannes Herrmann’s group is studying the biogenesis of mitochondria. His lab has two major interests: one is the oxidative protein folding in the intermembrane space, the other is the synthesis of proteins on mitochondrial ribosomes.

David Mueller’s studies focus on the structure function relationship of the mitochondrial ATP synthase. His studies encompass yeast genetics, molecular, and structural biology including x-ray crystallography. His laboratory also examines the structural basis of drugs and inhibitors binding to the proton channel of the ATP synthase.

Plácido Navas studied at the University of Seville (Spain) and Purdue University (Indiana, USA). He is currently a member of the Centre for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER) and mainly involved in mitochondrial pathology. His focus is on the regulation of coenzyme Q biosynthesis complex and its role in the assembly and efficiency of respiratory complexes. He is interested in the role of bioenergetics in both health and life span, and the connection of coenzyme Q biosynthesis pathway and mitophagy.

He is interested in understanding mitochondrial genome maintenance in Trypanosomes. His lab uses a combination of molecular biology, biochemistry and super resolution microscopy approaches to address the replication and segregation of the spectacular complex kineotplast DNA in this single-celled parasite.

His group’s research is focused on the synthesis and assembly of the mitochondrially encoded proteins. Defects in the expression of mitochondrial genes can cause or influence many human diseases including cancer, aging and mitochondrial disorders. Hi slab employs baker´s yeast to study the molecular mechanisms underlying mitochondrial biogenesis and to unravel how problems in these processes impact physiology.

He is interested in transport processes at mitochondrial membranes. His lab uses yeast as a tool to study the permeabilization of mitochondrial membranes caused by mammalian proteins of the Bcl-2 family.

Mitochondria have emerged as aging determinants through their functions in central metabolism and oxidative stress. The Pon laboratory uses the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisae to study mitochondrial motility and dynamics, mechanisms underlying mitochondrial quality control, inheritance and interactions with other organelles, and how these processes affect replicative lifespan, cellular healthspan and cell cycle progression.

His group investigates the molecular mechanisms by which mitochondrial outer membrane proteins are targeted to mitochondria, inserted into the outer membrane and assembled into functional complexes. He further studies the homeostasis of mitochondrial lipids and their importance for the aforementioned processes. For these studies the group uses both yeast and mammalian tissue cultures as experimental systems.

His lab aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms governing mitochondrial quality control focusing on mitophagy and mitochondrial dynamics. How these processes are linked to the aging process and the pathogenesis of numerous human disorders is a major interest of his research. Another focus is to understand the molecular mechanisms that shape the inner mitochondrial membrane, particularly, cristae and crista junctions and their importance in cellular viability.

Benedikt Westermann is a Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Bayreuth (Germany). He uses yeast as a model system to study the biogenesis, dynamics, and inheritance of mitochondria using state-of-the-art genetic methods, light and electron microscopy.

The Winge laboratory is focused on assembly of mitochondrial respiratory complexes with an emphasis on formation of cofactor centers. His group is interested in mitochondrial acquisition and use of metals (copper, zinc and iron).

He is interested in mitochondrial biology, metal (zinc, iron and copper) biology and their relevance to death, the action of drugs and neurodegenerative diseases. His group studies these questions using the yeast and fruit fly model organisms.

His lab is working on the elucidation of pathways involved in de novo synthesis of phospholipids and in lipid modifications of proteins in the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei. A collection of inducible knock-out and knock-down trypanosome strains allows us to study the importance of de novo synthesis of glycerophospholipid classes, in particular phosphatidylethanolamine and cardiolipin, on organelle integrity and function and on protein expression and stability in a highly controlled, i.e. time-dependent, way.

Nicolas Fasel is full professor at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). His research is centered around the function of the cysteine protease metacaspase in the cell death of the human Leishmania parasites. Recently, his group reported the important role of a virus present in Leishmania parasites as a factor implicated in the exacerbation of the infection in some forms of leishmaniases.

Mark Field is full professor at the Department of Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the University of Dundee (UK). He works primarily on the cell biology of trypanosomes, with specific interests in intracellular trafficking, protein processing and events at the nuclear envelope controlling gene expression. He also has interests in evolutionary biology and specifically the reconstruction of evolutionary histories of protein families involved in eukaryotic organelle biogenesis.

Nancy Guillén is a Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (France) and is the head of Cell Biology of Parasitism Unit - INSERM U786. Her research domain concerns the pathogenic process of the parasite Entamoeba histolytica, the agent of human amoebiasis. The project is about host-pathogen interactions with research topics including: comparative genome and transcriptome analysis, molecular and cellular pathophysiology coupled with live cells imaging, cell motility and cytoskeleton.

Prof. Dr. Nishith Gupta completed his Master of Science in Biotechnology from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (India), and received PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Leipzig (Germany). He then acquired postdoctoral training in Molecular Parasitology and Lipid Biochemistry at the National Jewish Medical Research Center, Denver (United States of America), and later joined Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany) establishing an independent group. In 2016, Dr. Gupta was awarded a Heisenberg fellowship by the German Research Foundation (DFG), and in 2017, he received a Habilitation degree with Venia Legendi (eq. DSc) in Biochemistry from Humboldt University, Berlin. Currently, Dr. Gupta is working as a Professor and Wellcome Trust - DBT Senior fellow at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Hyderabad Campus (India), where he has founded the Intracellular Parasite Education And Research Labs (iPEARL). The primary foci of his work have been to examine the membrane biogenesis, metabolism and signaling in single-cell intracellular parasites concerning their pathogenesis, persistence and adaptation in mammalian host cells. His group has successfully unified the core biological disciplines with optogenetics and multi-omics. His expertise includes biochemistry, genome engineering and cell biology of pathogenic protists.

Antonio Jiménez-Ruiz is a full professor at the Systems Biology Department at the University of Alcalá (Spain). His research group is involved in the characterization of apoptosis-like processes in the Leishmania parasite, paying special attention to putative executer/regulator molecules such as the nuclease EndoG. At the same time, his group is actively involved in the design of new drugs able to disrupt protein-protein interactions in specific targets from the parasite.

Carsten Lüder studied biology an the Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen (Germany) and is now professor at the Institute for Medical Microbiology of the Georg-August-University of Göttingen (Germany). His major research interests are pathogen-host interactions with a special emphasis on elucidating mechanisms of how the intracellular model parasite Toxoplasma gondii manipulates its host cells in order to evade host immunity and to ensure establishing a chronic infection within its mammalian host.

She is a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, a full professor in the Department of Microbiology-Infectious Disease and Immunology at Laval University (Quebec, Canada), and Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunity at the CHU de Quebec Research Center. She is leading original work in the field of molecular parasitology with special emphasis on Leishmania post-transcriptional regulation, pathogenesis, functional genomics, and the development of live vaccine-based strategies. Her lab is also interested in deciphering the molecular pathways by which Leishmania parasites respond and adapt to intracellular stress.

He is Professor of Medicine, Head of the Institute of Parasitology and Medical Mycology at the Lyon University Hospital (France) and team leader of the Malaria Research Unit at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS UMR 5246, France). He is also President of the Chemotherapy against Parasite and Fungi (CaPF) network. He was the first to describe malaria parasite apoptosis and Plasmodium metacaspase pathways. He translated basic research to clinical trials and used anti-apoptotic drugs in patients suffering severe malaria in Africa. He has extensive experience of field clinical work in Africa, Asia and South America. He is both biologist and clinician acting at outpatient clinic for travel prevention and diseases.

He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and did a post-doctoral stay at the Wayne State University (USA). He is currently a full professor at the Institute for Anatomy of the Central University of Venezuela (Venezuela). He is interested in: A) the biology of the Trypanosoma and Leishmania, particularly autophagy and cell death; B) membrane transport proteins in protozoa parasites, especially proteins belonging to the aquaporin family; C) their association with physiological processes, and their pharmacological importance.

His research essentially deals with (i) the role of phospho-dephosphorylation mechanisms in the reponse to stress in yeasts and (ii) the overall mechanisms that allow proper regulation of monovalent cation homeostasis.

Mark Ashe's lab works on a variety of stress responses and their effects on protein synthesis, mRNA fate and translation factor localisation in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Studies on alcohols in terms of stress in yeast have also led to an interest in biofuel production using yeast. This has opened up new areas such as metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.

Anders Blomberg is professor in Functional Genomics at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Gothenburg (Sweden). He has an interest in molecular mechanisms involved in various stress responses e.g. osmotic dehydration, oxidative stress, light-sensitivity, mainly examined in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae but also in a number of marine organisms. High-resolution yeast phenomics is a key-activity where he investigates the finer details of the genotype-phenotype map and explores the potential for surrogate genetics via ectopic expression of genes/alleles from humans and marine species. He also leads ten ongoing marine genome projects.

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Katrina Cooper earned her D. Phil. from Oxford University (UK) and pursued post-doctoral studies at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia (USA). Research in her laboratory focuses on deciphering how cells translate external stress signals into the appropriate molecular response. To this end, she is focusing on the molecular mechanisms that trigger stress-induced mitochondrial fission and programmed cell death using both budding yeast and mouse models.

His research efforts are aimed at understanding the responses of eukaryotic cells to oxidative stress using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. His lab mainly focuses on the regulation of redox homeostasis and how cells regulate gene expression during stress conditions.

His group is interested in the mechanisms by which cells actively protect themselves from stress in order to prevent premature or inappropriate Programmed Cell Death (PCD). His lab’s main strategy is the identification and characterization of human sequences, and their yeast counterparts, that serve to prevent PCD in yeast.

His lab’s life imaging microscopy studies on the yeast S. cerevisiae concern the stress-induced rearrangement of the translation machinery and associated regulatory proteins.

His research focuses on the cellular responses to oxidative stress and the mechanisms of redox regulation including the relationship with metal homeostasis, using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as model.

His lab is engaged in deciphering the role of chaperones, particularly Hsp70, in prion propagation and other cellular functions. Furthermore, he is interested in prions of lower eukaryotes as well as in DNA repair systems in filamentous fungi.

His laboratory’s research area includes yeast molecular biology and genetics, oxidative stress and antioxidant genes, redox biology, aging and cellular death as well as mitochondrial function.

Maria Pia Longhese is a full professor of Genetics at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). Her laboratory studies the mechanisms governing the cellular response to DNA damage and telomere homeostasis, using S. cerevisiae as a model organism. Her research mainly focuses on understanding how cells sense, process and repair DNA lesions. At the same time, she investigates the mechanisms that ensure telomere homeostasis and inhibit DNA repair activities at telomeres.

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Claudina Rodrigues-Pousada is Full Professor and head of the genomics and stress laboratory at the Instituto de Tecnologia Química Biológica António Xavier (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal). Her research interests are focused on the mechanisms used by the cells to regulate gene expression when confronted with several environmental cues in order to maintain proper homeostatic control. Her group has discovered a family of transcription factors formed by 8 members belonging to the bZIP structure, the Yap family. Her laboratory is therefore interested in understanding how these transcription factors activate the basal machinery of transcription and how they are regulated under several environmental stresses such as arsenic compounds, high levels of iron and oxidative stress. Her group uses modern global techniques to analyse the targets of those transcription factors as to integrate them in the several metabolic pathways.

His main interests are: Catalysis of protein folding by PPIases and Dsb Proteins; transcriptional regulation, heat shock response and regulation of cell envelope stress by RpoE sigma factor and non-coding sRNAs; regulated assembly of lipopolysaccharides

Using microbial toxins (diphtheria toxin, tRNase ribotoxins) and yeasts as models for organismic competition, the Schaffrath lab focuses on cell growth control in response to antifungal stress. Among others, his group studies mRNA translation-relevant protein and tRNA modification pathways that are hijacked by these toxins.

The Schüller Lab at the University of Natural Resources Vienna (Austria), explores environmental and host response patterns and stress response in S.cerevisae, Candida glabrata and Candida spp.. The group has a long-standing interest in the transcription factor Msn2 and is involved in finding new microbial metabolites from filamentous fungi (www.bimm-research.at).

Maria Segovia studied at the Complutense University Madrid (Spain) where she obtained her PhD in biology. She has worked at Queen’s University Belfast (UK) and at the University of Málaga (Spain) where she is currently lecturer in Ecology at the Department of Ecology and Geology. Her field of expertise and research is focused on the molecular physiology of unicellular algae related to environmental stress, i.e. cell viability and death, oxidative stress, as well as DNA and photosynthesis damage and repair.

His lab studies the links between mitochondrial dynamics, reactive oxygen species formation, stress response, and the cell cycle. His group’s most recent research interest is to apply yeast to study the mechanism of action of mitochondria-targeted antioxidants.

She is currently a professor at the University of Minho (Portugal). Her main areas of interest have been the cellular and molecular responses of conventional and non-conventional yeast to different environmental stresses or changes, including metabolic adaptation with emphasis on transport systems, mechanisms underlying resistance or induction of cell death. In the last years, she has been particularly interested in the study of yeast apoptotic and necrotic pathways and their regulation using acetic acid and ammonium as death stimuli. She is also interested in the use of yeast as a model system for the study of heterologously expressed mammalian proteins and for the identification of cellular targets of natural compounds and novel synthetic molecules.

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Renata Tisi is an Assistant professor in Molecular Biology at the Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). Her research interest has been signal transduction upon nutrient or stress in budding yeast for almost two decades. In particular, she has worked on Ras protein regulators (RasGEF and RasGAPs) and on calcium signaling, which led to the identification of a phospholipase C-dependent pathway and of a yet unidentified group of TRP channels in S. cerevisiae. In recent years she has been interested in computational approaches, in particular homology modelling and molecular dynamics applied to protein complexes involved in DNA double strand breaks repair.

Joris Winderickx is a professor at the Department of Biology of KU Leuven (Belgium). He has ample expertise on nutrient- and stress-dependent signaling in yeast. Being convinced that several signaling cascades in yeast are at the origin of more complex pathways in metazoans, he pioneered on the use of yeast as a model to study the molecular mechanisms underlying a variety of human disorders, where the primary focus is on degenerative protein (mis)folding diseases.

He studies cell cycle regulation and cell cycle alteration under external and/or internal stress, using budding yeast as a model system. His laboratory is particularly interested in the mechanism of stress-induced cell death at both the cellular and molecular levels.

Cavalieri's work (www.duccioknights.org) focuses on Evolutionary Systems Biology approaches to the ecology of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with the aim to decipher the regulatory networks involved in cooperative/competitive interactions between yeast cells, yeast and bacterial cells and between yeasts and their hosts.

The CvijovicLab (cvijoviclab.org) uses systems biology approach to investigate the mechanisms governing segregation of aggregated proteins and its role in rejuvenation process. In particular we combine mathematical modelling with microfluidics technology to further understand major causes of variability between individual ageing cells and how the ageing of a single cell contributes to the overall behaviour of cell population.

Prof. Diallinas’ research group uses of Aspergillus nidulans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae as model systems for dissecting structure-function relationships underlying transporter function, specificity and molecular evolution, as well as, for identifying the pathways and molecular mechanisms involved in the trafficking, endocytosis and turnover of membrane cargoes in response to various physiological and stress signals. His research also extends on the role of transporters in fungal pathogenicity and in the rational design of antifungal drugs.

He is a Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Seville, Spain. He studied Biology/Biochemistry in Seville and specialized in the genetics of cyanobacteria at Michigan State University (USA). He is generally interested in bacteriology. His professional activities have been centered mainly in the field of nitrogen assimilation, with a focus on membrane transport, enzymology and regulation of gene expression. His current research addresses the molecular basis of multicellularity in bacteria, investigating cell differentiation and intercellular communication in filamentous, heterocyst-forming cyanobacteria.

Jean Marie Francois obtained his PhD from the University of Louvain (Belgium). He is full professor in Molecular Physiology, Industrial Microbiology and Nanobiotechnology at the National Institute of Applied Sciences, University of Toulouse (France). His research activity concerns integrated physiology and functional genomics in microbial systems, with a specific focus on carbon and energy metabolism in yeast and filamentous fungi. Another major topic of his group is now focused towards synthetic biology with the aim at exploiting biomass resources to produce chemical synthon through a synthetic microbial metabolism refactoring approach.

His lab works on the molecular mechanisms of cilium/flagellum formation using biochemical and structural biology techniques. In particular his group is deciphering how ciliary proteins are trafficked into and out of the cilium organelle via intraflagellar transport (IFT). This research is relevant for our understanding of unicellular eukaryotic organisms such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii but also of mammalian cells, of which most are now known to be ciliated.

The research of Tobias Madl and his group focuses on integrated structural biology of signal transduction and metabolism. One of his major interests is the general molecular mechanisms of signal transfer mediated by disordered proteins and the intricate link between their function, regulation and human diseases. To obtain systemic insight into regulatory pathways and for translational studies, they use and develop NMR-based metabolic phenotyping.

Her research is focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying the interplay between metabolic adaptation and oxidative stress in wine yeasts, including the regulation of gene expression at transcriptional and translational levels, the enzymatic and non enzymatic redox defense systems, and the oxidative damage of macromolecular cellular components. All the physiological, biochemical, genetic and environmental factors are taken into account to explain and improve the biotechnological performance of these microorganisms, belonging mainly to Saccharomyces cerevisiae but also to other yeast species, by enhancing their oxidative stress response and longevity. Metabolic engineering in synthetic biology and integrative system biology are also main interest areas where collaborative projects are underway.

Diethard Mattanovich is full professor of Microbial Cell Design at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (Austria). His laboratory focuses on the development and characterization of microbial production organisms for biotechnology. Special emphasis is placed on folding and secretion of recombinant proteins in yeast, and metabolic engineering of bacteria and yeasts to adapt pathways towards production of chemicals of industrial interest. Microbial stress and intracellular transport are main topics of interest. Systems biology methods are applied to study microbial cells at a genome scale level.

Jeremy Mottram is Professor of Molecular and Cellular Parasitology in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology at the University of Glasgow (Scotland). His main research interests are in the molecular mechanisms by which Leishmania and trypanosome parasites undergo cellular remodelling during their complex life cycles. The lab's focus is on cell signalling events, in particular the role of protein kinases, and the turnover of proteins and organelles, with a focus on peptidases and autophagy. He has yet to be convinced that protozoan parasites undergo programmed cell death.

Her group’s research interest is primarily on yeast S. cerevisiae cell death and aging. Her lab combines methods of molecular and cell biology, biochemistry, bioinformatics and systems biology (including omics and modeling) with the scope to study how cells regulate aging and death pathways and how these pathways are related to proteostasis (proteome homeostasis).

Isabel Sá-Correia is Full Professor and Head of the Biological Sciences Research Group at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Universidade de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal). Her research interests are in the fields of Molecular and Cellular Microbiology, Functional and Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, and Microbial Biotechnology. In the field of Yeast Toxicogenomics, a molecular systems biology approach is used to obtain mechanistic insights and a genome-wide view on the responses to chemical compounds relevant in Environmental Health, Pharmacology and Biotechnology and to characterize new signalling pathways and gene regulatory networks under chemical stress. In the field of molecular and cellular biology of yeasts, her research is focused on: i) the regulation of gene and genomic expression under stress; ii) transmembrane transport, in particular the functional analysis of drug/xenobiotic efflux pumps of the MFS and ABC superfamily and their role in cell defense, multidrug resistance (MDR) and impact in industrial and environmental biotecnology.

Her lab is studying the remodeling of cellular machineries (the actin and tubulin cytoskeletons, the proteasome, the mitochondria, etc.) that occur upon transition from proliferation to quiescence in S. cerevisiae, S. pombe and human cells. Her group also uses quiescent cells-specific cellular reorganizations as tools to understand how quiescent cells do survive and rapidly give rise to a rejuvenated progeny as well as to decipher the cascade of molecular switches that control quiescence exit.

She is a researcher at the Department of Ecogenomics and Systems Biology at the University of Vienna (Austria) and focuses on bioenergetics, evolution and metabolism from both a bioinformatics and biochemical point of view.

The group of Ulrich Stelzl focuses on the analysis of molecular interaction networks with the aim to understand the dynamics of molecular networks underlying cellular processes related to human disease. Experimental functional genomics techniques, e.g. HTP Y2H screening, are utilized in combination with biochemical, cell biological and computational methods. In combination with mammalian cell culture and in silico work, yeast is used as a model and serves as the main tool for versatile screening approaches.

His research focus is on fungal infections caused by pathogenic yeasts of the Candida genus, especially C. glabrata. The ability of these species to become effective pathogenic agents is under analysis, including their concerted ability to display antifungal drug resistance, virulence factors, and a surprisingly high tolerance to the host’s immune system defences. Current studies are being guided by genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics approaches, together with the development of bioinformatics tools, such as the PathoYeastract database.

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