Inês Serra is a Biology student (branch Cell Biology and Biotechnology) at Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL), nearing completing her bachelor’s degree. She has diverse interests ranging from  molecular biology, microbiology, and plant physiology.

Leonardo Isea is a MSc Student in Microbiology. He finished his bachelor’s degree in 2023 in Biochemistry, at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL). His master thesis presents a focus on studying the impact of novel peptides in improving fruit shelf life and postharvest decay. He will apply diverse techniques such as Real-time PCR, Fluorescence microscopy, and microbial culture.

Patrícia Pardal finished her bachelor in Biochemistry in 2022. Currently she is engaged in the master programme on Biochemistry and Biomedicine at FCUL. Her ongoing master`s thesis focuses on “Assessment of melatonin as a priming agent against fruit decay due to fungal infections in table grapes”. She is applying diverse techniques such as RNA sequencing, Real-time PCR, Spectrophotometric methods, Fluorescence microscopy and image analysis.

Júlio Maciel is a MSc in Microbiology, recently graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). They finished their Biology BSc degree in 2020 at Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL). Their master thesis and recent work revolves around the exploration and exploitation of the soil microbiome associated with the grapevine cultivars Syrah and Touriga Nacional, intersecting this to environmental drought scenarios. In their free time, Júlio also works as a chemical analyst for the ONG, Kosmicare.

He was trained as a biologist at the University Federico II of Naples (Italy) and studied Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the University of Algarve (Portugal). At the Centro de Ciências do Mar he contributed to several research projects. Two were focused on ecology and physiology of seagrasses and macroalgae. Then he shifted his interest towards microbiology, studying the ecology and diversity of the microbiome associated to macroalgae and marine sponges under natural and global warming conditions (heat weaves and ocean acidification) and to fish larvae of Sparus aurata under treatments of Asparagopsis Armata extracts. During that period, he also took part to two Assemble research campaigns: in Banyuls-sur-Mer (France) and in Ischia (Italy).
He concluded his PhD in January 2022 at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany). He studied the inter-kingdome interaction between the green macroalga Ulva mutabilis and the bacterium Maribacter sp. Integrated in the team, he continued the research on the elucidation of thallusin, compound released by the bacterium, and studied the thallusin effects on the molecular mechanisms occurring in Ulva during early growth developmental phase in axenic conditions, by performing transcriptomics and metabolomics. A parallel project included a collaboration with an aquaculture company for the characterization of the microbiome associated to Ulva under standard growing conditions.
Overall, its publication record includes 18 peer-reviewed articles and 2 book chapters (5 first authorships) with a h-index of 11 (google-scholar).
Currently, he has joined the FFGB group to work on the MiDiVine (Innovative Approaches Promoting Functional Microbial Diversity for a Sustainable Grapevine Health and Productivity in Vineyard Systems of Mediterranean Areas) project.

Ana Margarida Fortes holds a PhD in Plant Biotechnology (2003, FCUL). She is currently an Assistant Professor in FCUL and leader of Fruit Functional Genomics & Biotechnology group (FFGB, PFG, BIOISI). The lab currently integrates two post-docs, 3 PhD students and 3 Master students. Ana Margarida Fortes has published 55 articles, five book chapters and high volume of Omics data in databases (GenBank/ EMBL / DDBJ/SRA). H-index 27 (Google Scholar) and h-index 24 (Scopus). Her research interests have been focused on fruit ripening and defense. She has been studying tomato and grape ripening and grapevine defense responses when challenged with devastating fungal pathogens. The major goals of her research are the establishment of putative models of fruit ripening and fruit- pathogen interaction based on omics data to be further validated by functional analysis in particular gene editing. She got financial support as PI from 3 International (ERA-NET, H2020-MSCA-RISE, H2020PRIMA) and 4 National (FCT, FCUL) projects on grapevine. Two international and one national are still undergoing and/or have been recently approved. She made part of the Management Committee of four Cost Actions. She was the Grant Award Coordinator (STSM, ITC, VMG, dissemination grants) of COST CA17111 – Data integration to maximise the power of omics for grapevine (2018-2022). She made part of the Scientific Committee (SC) of several meetings, including the 3rd ISHS International Humulus Symposium (2012), the 10th and 11th Intl Symposium on Grapevine Physiology and Biotechnology (2016, 2021) and the International Symposium on Grapevine Breeding and Genetics (2022). She was/is the Co-PI (four) and/or participant (eleven) of several other national projects on grapevine, hop and corkoak. She has been reviewing manuscripts for major plant journals (Plant Cell, Plant Physiology, JXB) and science foundations (e.g. American NSF, German DGF, French ANR, and COST as expert/ rapporteur). She is since 2017 the Supervising editor of Plant Direct (Wiley, American Society of Plant Biologists and The Society for Experimental Botany). She has performed / is performing editorial activities for other four Plant Journals. In 2016, her group received the first Innovation Prize from CNOIV with the work “Transcriptome and metabolome reprogrammig in Vitis vinifera cv. Trincadeira berries upon infection with Botrytis cinerea” published in the top-ranking journal Journal of Experimental Botany. In 2021 she was invited to join the group of viticulture specialists of CNOIV. Recently, another paper (on Omics and grapevine) published in Journal of Experimental Botany was awarded as the EDITOR´S CHOICE of Volume 72, Issue 18. In 2021 and 2022 she was recognized as the semester professor by Biology Students (Branch Cell Biology and Biotechnology) as professor of Introduction to Plant Biotechnology. In January 2022 she was Invited Professor for two weeks at BOKU (Vienna) and taught at the International Master program of Viticulture, Enology, and Wine business. Recently, she was interviewed by Center for Biotechnology Information-CIB regarding the work of her group on gene editing in tomato.

Beatriz is a MSc Student in Biology of Plant Resources. She finished her bachelor’s degree in 2020, in Biology, at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon (FCUL). In her MSc thesis, she will assess the roles of the GRAS9 and GRAS10 genes in tomato flowering, fruit development and ripening.

Rute is a Molecular Biologist specialized in Plant Biotcehnology. As a research fellow, she is focused on describing the modulation of hormonal metabolism associated with tolerance or susceptibility of grapevine to Powdery Mildew. Also, she is interested in unveiling a new role of a plastid-derived compound as a priming agent of grapevine defences against the Grey Mould.