Confirmed Speakers

Celso A. Reis is the Head of the Glycobiology in Cancer group at i3S/Ipatimup, University of Porto, where he leads an international multidisciplinary team. He has published 180 peer-reviewed papers, with over 10100 citations and with H-index of 47 (Scopus). His publications include papers in journals such as: Cancer Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Int. J. Cancer, Cancer Research, Nature Reviews in Cancer, PNAS, JBC, JACS, BBA, FEBS Lett, Molecular Cellular Proteomics, Oncogene, Cancer Letters, Mucosal Immunology, Cellular Immunology, Journal Clinical Investigation, among others.

Celso A. Reis research focus on the role of glycosylation in human cancer. He has addressed the molecular mechanisms controlling glycosylation in cancer cell biology, more specifically the role of glycosyltransferases regulating the biosynthesis of glycans in cancer. These included the role of sialyltransferases leading to the biosynthesis of terminal sialylated glycan antigens expressed by cancer cells, such as ST6GalNAc determining the aberrant expression of the simple O-glycan Sialyl-Tn antigen, and the ST3Gal-transferases and Fucosyltransferases controlling the expression of sialyl-Lewis antigens.

Júlia Carvalho Costa completed the Habilitation ("Agregação") in 2012 by Universidade Nova de Lisboa Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, the PhD in Biochemistry in 1994 by Universidade de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências and the Degree in Biochemistry in 1988 by Universidade de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências. She is Principal Investigator in Universidade Nova de Lisboa Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica. She published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals. She participates and/or participated in more than 10 projects.

Salomé Pinho received her D.V.M. from the University of Porto in 2004 and developed her PhD research at the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of Univ. Porto (IPATIMUP) and at Boston Medical School, MA, USA from 2006 to 2009. She performed her postdoctoral work at IPATIMUP in the glycobiology and disease field. At present, she is Researcher (PI) at IPATIMUP/i3S and affiliated Professor at Faculty of Medicine at University of Porto. Her research activity is focused on the understanding of the role of post-translational modifications by glycosylation in the regulation of key proteins´ functions involved in cancer and in chronic inflammatory conditions, envisioning potential clinical applications. She is author of several publications in international peer-reviewed journals (as first and senior author) including Nature Reviews Cancer, Oncogene and Human Molecular Genetics. She supervises a research team composed by Post-Docs, PhD students, Master students and young researchers. She is the Principal Investigator of several national/international funded projects in the field of cancer and inflammatory diseases. She received the Young Investigator Award from the European Association for Cancer Research and is inventor of 2 patents.

Iva Pashkuleva obtained PhD in Organic Synthesis from University of Sofia, Bulgaria in 2000 and immediately was contracted by the same University as an Assistant Professor. In 2002, she moved to University of Minho, Portugal where started research activities in the area of Biomaterials as a post-doc fellow under the scope of the European project ALGISORB. One year later, she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). During her PostDoc, she specialised in surface characterisation and modification of biomaterials. In 2008, she received Career Starting Grant under the Portuguese National Program Compromisso com a Ciência. During this period, Dr Pashkuleva kept her research focus on surface modification of biomaterials (with emphasis on starch and chitosan) as a way to enhance their biocompatibility. She was principal investigator (PI) of two European projects that enabled her to build own network of international collaborations both in academy and industry. In the following period, she was awarded two Development Career Grants: in 2013 under the Portuguese Program Investigador FCT and in 2019 under the programme for Individual Scientific Employment Stimulus. During this last period, I Pashkuleva established a new research line focussed on biofunctional glycans and built a small research team, whose core is currently composed by 1 Research associate, 4 Junior researchers, 1 PostDoc and 3 PhD students, financially supported under different programmes. She also takes part of the ERASMUS programme (supervisor of undergrad students), the FCT PhD programme in Tissue engineering, regenerative medicine (TERM) and stem cells (coordinator of the biomaterials module) as well as of the UMinho online course in TERM. Pashkuleva and her team are working on the elucidation of glycan role in cellular communication and the possibility to explore glycans in design and synthesis of functional biomaterials. They have developed new analytical methods and platforms for characterization of challenging to measure glycan-protein and glycan-cell interactions. Advancements in glycan-based delivery systems were achieved by development of new designs and concepts. The use of glycans in cancer therapies was also explored: for the first-time glycan amphiphiles were used as substrates in selective biocatalytic approach. Extracellular supramolecular mimics were generated by self-assembly of glycans and proteins or their functional simpler analogues carbohydrates and peptides. As PI and Co-PI she successfully obtained funding from FCT and EC in a total amount of approx 5M¿ while she has participated in the proposal preparation and research team of National granted Projects corresponding to a total budget of about 0.87M¿ and EC projects corresponding to a total budget of over 3.52M¿. Her background and experience gained during the years has been recognised by different evaluation agencies and peers. She has been acting as a member of different MSc and PhD examination panels and as External Evaluator of Project proposals for EU (H2020, ERA-NET) and different national foundations (Czech Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, EMPA co-fund programme, University of Milano - Bicocca "Innovation Project Grant" program). During the last years she has been acting as a referee for peer-reviewed journals form Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, RSC, ACS. Since 2018, she is an Academic editor for PlosOne, editorial board member of Molecules (MDPI) and a review editor of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. I Pashkuleva is an elected member of the General and Scientific Councils of the Research Institute of Biomaterials, Biodegradables and Biomimetics (I3Bs) and the Quality Assurance team of the same Institute.

Manuel A. Coimbra is Associate Professor with Habilitation at the Department of Chemistry of University of Aveiro. Professor of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry. Director of the BSc in Biochemistry of the Universidade de Aveiro, since 17/11/2006. President of the Scientific Panel of Food Additives and Contaminants of the Food Chain of ASAE, the Portuguese Food Safety Agency, since 2008. Research interests are related with polysaccharide chemistry and applications, food composition, biochemistry and processing, carbohydrate chemistry, volatile and phenolic compounds, by-products valuation, circular economy, and development of novel products. Carbohydr. Polym. Editor in Chief (IF2020=9.381). He has been involved in many Research projects, with supervision of 23 PhD students and 14 Post-Docs, and published 317 papers (Scopus, February 2022), with 10,193 citations in 7634 documents, and h=56).

José Alexandre Ferreira graduated in Chemistry by the University of Aveiro in 2002 and completed an MSc in Food Chemistry in 2004, with specialization in glycochemistry. In 2010 he obtained a PhD degree from the University of Aveiro in collaboration with the Vaccine Discovery Group at the University of Guelph (CA). During his PhD he identified several antigenic glycans from gastric pathogen H. pylori, the main etiologic agent of gastric cancer. Some antigens are currently explored as innovative serological tools. He then joined the Mass Spectrometry Center of UA as a postdoctoral research fellow, to address key roles played by protein glycosylation in cancer combining glycomics and glycoproteomics. In the meantime, he was also the main entrepreneur of GlyConStruct, a spin-off company aimed to design biotechnological solutions for producing glycopeptides of clinical interest. In 2013, he assumed the coordination of a research team at Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Porto (IPO-Porto), the largest oncology hospital in Portugal. In 2016, he also became a member of the Glycobiology in Cancer group of Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology (IPATIMUP) of the University of Porto, and an invited researcher at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (Braga, Portugal), with the objective of fostering the translation of glycan-based technologies into clinical applications. Since then, he established a solid platform for graduate training in oncoglycobiology at IPO-Porto (3 PhD, 11 MSc), and currently coordinates several graduate students (5 PhD, 2 Msc) and a postdoctoral researcher. He often lectures in several Master courses of UA, University of Porto, and international courses, such as the 2014 EMBO workshop in Glycobiology and Glycochemistry. He maintains active collaborations with academia and pharmaceutical industry partners. Since 2013, he has been involved in 5 funded projects in glycosciences, including GlycoCan, a Marie Curie European Training Network composed of 15 leading European partners in the fields of glycobiology, glyco-immunology and biomarker research. In 2016, I became an external scientific evaluator for the European commission, WHRI-Academy International Marrie Currie Fellowship (UK) and MATWIN (FR) actions, focusing on competitive oncology projects and optimizing technology transfer potential. He was invited as speaker in more than 15 scientific meetings, including the 2017 Human Proteome Organization World Congress (HUPO-2017), to discuss my achievements in glycoproteomics. He holds 3 patents and 34 publications (26 publications since 2013; 527 citations; average impact factor: 5; H-index: 15; i10-index: 19) in relevant peer-reviewed journals in glycobiology, glycoproteomics, oncoglycobiology, cancer biomarkers and therapeutics. These include publications in Molecular Oncology, British Journal of Cancer, Cancer Letters, Oncotarget and Nature Cell Biology.

His main research topics are the following:
i) Understand the molecular mechanisms controlling protein glycosylation alterations relevant to carcinogenesis and cancer progression;
ii) Explore glycobiomarkers to refine cancer diagnosis, prognosis, patient stratification and novel therapeutics towards precision medicine settings;
iii) Development of glycan-based sensors for cancer applications;
iv) Development of glycan-based cancer therapeutics (immunotherapy, targeted nanodrugs).

As part of an Oncology Center of Excellence, his research presents a strong translational and market oriented character, aiming for glycan-based innovations in oncology.

I am a Biochemist (2005) and a PhD in Biomedicine (2011) by University of Porto. Through my international curricular pathway, I got trained in proteomics at the BRC-Centre of Excellence of the European Union (Hungary), in Proximity Ligation Assays at Uppsala University (Sweden), in oncobiology and glycobiology at the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of University of Porto (Portugal) and in bacterial adhesion and pathogen adaptation at Umea University (Sweden). At present, I am an Assistant Investigator at i3S and Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at ICBAS- Scholl of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Porto.
My research experience has resulted in a solid publication record in cancer glycobiology as I contributed to more than 50 peer-reviewed publications (including Cancer Cell, Nature Cell Biology, Developmental Cell, JBC, Mucosal Immunology, BBA, Journal of Clinical Investigation) with more than 250 different co-authors. My publications have received more than 1800 citations (H-index 26). My scientific findings have been translated in two international patents. I have been distinguished with several prizes including: Fundação Eng. António de Almeida (2005); EMBO fellowship (2012) and FEBS Letters award (2019). I have successfully complete the supervision of 3 PhD and 6 MSc students, as main or co-supervisor. All these dissertations articulate fundamental and clinical research. 
Since 2017, I independently established a new line of research i3S/University of Porto, focused on the mechanistic roles of proteoglycans in cancer-extracellular matrix dynamics and cell communication. I have been successful in raising competitive funding as Principal Investigator (238K from FCT), and as participant researcher in national and international project grants (>1,75M from FCT, EU Regional Development Fund, EU-funded Marie Curie ITN GastricGlycoExplorer and INNOGLY COST action). These grants allowed me to build a strong and dedicated research team. I currently supervise 2 PhD students (Co-supervised by Mattias Belting, Lund University and Romain Vivès, IBS-Grenoble). I additionally co-supervise a medical PhD student from the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto. I have independently established a network of high profiled international collaborators that are either consultants on my research projects or co-supervisors and hosts of my PhD students. Moreover, my international recognition in cancer glycobiology is reflected by the organization of international meetings, my roles in European consortiums (including Marie Curie training networks and COST actions) and invitation for oral presentations in international meetings. 
In addition, I have participated in juries of academic degrees; I act as reviewer for several journals, I am an Associated Editor of Frontiers in Oncology, Topic Board Member of Biomolecules and co-editor of Rising Stars initiative from Frontiers in Gastroenterology; in the last 2-years was a member of the management committee of the INNOGLY COST action. As an i3S Science Ambassador, I have been engaged in several activities of Science Awareness and Dissemination.

Rita Ventura is the head of the Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory at ITQB NOVA since October 2005. Her main research interests are asymmetric synthesis, the total synthesis of natural compounds and analogues with improved biological properties, carbohydrate chemistry, stereoselective organocatalysis and medicinal chemistry. R. Ventura obtained a PhD degree in Chemistry from Universidade NOVA de Lisboa in 1999 and graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculdade de Farmácia da Universidade de Lisboa in 1995. R. Ventura has published 63 research articles in peer-reviewed journals and 5 patents (Scopus Author ID: 7201763165, ResearcherID B-8011-2008, Orcid 0000-0002-6854-7278). She is the author and co-author of 95 oral and poster communications in international conferences. She has received 3 prizes. R. Ventura is currently supervising 4 PhD students, co-supervising 3 PhD students (Supervisor of the Organic Synthesis tasks), 1 Doctorated researcher (Project Doctorate contract), 1 Master student and 1 Research Fellow (BI) and 1 final year project student. She has already supervised 3 PhD Students (1 Marie Curie fellow), 7 Post-doc researchers, 8 Master Students and several final year project students, Erasmus students, Leonardo da Vinci exchange students, technician students and Summer School students. R. Ventura is currently PI of 2 FCT projects and of an European Stroke Research Foundation (ESRF) project and team member (Leader of the organic synthesis tasks) of 4 other projects. She has been the PI of 1 FCT project, Co-PI and team member of 2 European projects, of 13 national research projects funded by FCT and one by Hovione, that led to an international patent. R. Ventura coordinates the curricular unit “Drug Discovery, Design and Development” of the Master in Biochemistry for Health (ITQB, FCT, FCM – UNL) since 2014 and is the coordinator of the curricular unit “Biological Chemistry” in the Doctoral program Molecular Biological Sciences (ITQB). R. Ventura is Invited Auxiliary Professor at Faculdade de Medicina e Ciências Biomédicas, Universidade do Algarve and coordinator of the curricular unit “Anti-cancer Drug Discovery” of the Master in Oncobiology – Molecular Mechanisms in Cancer at the same university. She has coordinated 2 curricular units in Master courses and has taught in 3 Doctoral Programs and she has coordinated 2 curricular units of pre-graduated courses. R. Ventura coordinates and participates regularly in Science Communication activities promoted by ITQB such as the ITQB open day and receiving school visits. R. Ventura is co-founder and CSO (Chief Scientific Officer) of the startup ExtremoChem, since November 2013. Part of the research is patented (International patent WO2015137838A1). ExtremoChem employs young and talented researchers and has attracted private venture capital.

-PhD in Organic Chemistry (2011, Universidade de Lisboa, Institut National des Sciences Appliqués de Lyon); -Postdoctoral Researcher at Universität für Bodenkultur, Vienna (2011/2012) and afterwards at Universidade de Lisboa (2012/2013). -Assistant Researcher at the Center of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Investigador FCT, 2014/2018), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL) and at Centro de Química Estrutural, FCUL (CEEC-IND 2018, since Jul. 2020). -Research interests are encompassed within organic synthesis/medicinal chemistry focusing carbohydrate derivatives, nucleosides and nucleotides.

Nuno Empadinhas graduated in Biology and received a PhD in Biochemistry (specialty in Microbiology) from the University of Coimbra (UC). He is Principal Investigator and Group Leader at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) and at the Center for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology (CIBB) of UC. His research has focused on microbial physiology namely molecular mechanisms of adaptation to stress. He studied microbes from extreme environments, mycobacteria, and other bacteria from the extreme gut ecosystem. He elucidated biosynthetic pathways for glycosidic compatible solutes from hyper/thermophilic archaea and bacteria, and for polymethylated lipid-transfer polysaccharides from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and nontuberculous mycobacteria. In his career as a molecular microbiologist, he has identified gene functions and enzyme activities that were founding members of 14 new families at the IUBMB nomenclature, some of which were created in the CAZy database. Mentored 20 PhD and MSc students and 5 Postdoctoral fellows. Co-inventor in 2 patents, published 4 book chapters and 63 papers. He was awarded with the Mizutani Grant in 2012. Coordinated or co-coordinated 10 projects funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Infarmed, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia, Mizutani Foundation for Glycoscience, and participated in some others including 3 funded by the European Commission.

Agostinho Carvalho is a biologist, leading a research team at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.  His research group focuses on understanding the contribution of host genetics to susceptibility to fungal diseases in immunocompromised patients. 

Dr Carvalho’s main areas of research are the regulatory effects of interindividual genetic variation on molecular and cellular processes of anti-fungal immunity, and the identification of novel prognostic, diagnostic and therapeutic targets for the development of personalized medical interventions. These aims are being addressed by a multidisciplinary team that combines basic scientists and clinical experts, and that resorts to advanced cellular and animal models of disease and human patients enrolled in national and international consortia.

Dr Carvalho has authored several seminal contributions to the field of immunology and immunogenetics of fungal disease and his contributions have been acknowledged with several awards. He is the Chief Specialty Editor for Medical Mycology in Frontiers in Fungal Biology and serves as an editorial board member for Microbiology Spectrumand Infection and Immunity. He is a nominated fellow of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology (ECMM).

I completed a PhD in Biological Engineering by Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCT/UNL), Portugal, in 2004. Post-Doctoral activity was initiated in 2005, at the Associated Laboratory REQUIMTE (FCT/UNL) and Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica (iBET), working on projects financed by the companies Telener and 73100 Lda.. Currently, I am a Senior Researcher at the Biochemical Engineering Group (BIOENG), at UCIBIO-REQUIMTE, FCT/UNL, where I have established my own line of research on microbial polysaccharides. My interest for topics related with the area of Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology started during execution of my PhD work, wherein I developed a strategy for improved nutrient removal from wastewaters, based on the use of short aeration cycles (intermittent aeration). The objective was to save on aeration requirements, without compromising the process efficiency. In that sense, the work was successful in demonstrating the feasibility of using an SBR operated with short cycles, wherein the overall aeration time was considerably reduced, while achieving a high removal of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus from the synthetic effluent tested. Following the completion of my PhD degree, my research interests were focused in developing sustainable and cost effective bioprocesses for the generation of value-added microbial bioproducts, namely, polysaccharides, bioplastics and fine chemicals, based on the use of low-grade agro/food and industrial wastes and by-products. I also give great emphasis on the development of efficient and environmental friendly processes for the recovery of the bioproducts from microbial broth/biomass, as well as on the study of their properties, aiming to develop them into commercial products. This approach is in line with the circular economy concept and contributes to reduce the environmental impact of waste disposal currently done by many industrial sectors, by their conversion into value-added products. My Post-Doctoral work has already resulted in the development of several sustainable bioprocesses, based on the use of different wastes/by-products (e.g. glycerol from the biodiesel production, cheese whey, fruit and vegetable processing wastes, etc.) as feedstcoks for the production of different high-value bioproducts, including polysaccharides (e.g. FucoPol, GalactoPol, chitin-glucan complex, mannans, etc.), polyhydroxyalkanoates (e.g. poly(hydroxybutyrate), poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate), medium-chain length polyhydroxyalkanoates, etc.) and fine chemicals (e.g. xylitol, phenazines, etc.). This clearly demonstrates my interest and contribution to the area of Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology. Most of the projects I have been engaged in were performed in collaboration with Industry partners envisaging bioprocesses’ scale-up and industrialization. This objective has been achieved, as demonstrated by the activities currently being undertaken by the company 73100 Lda. for scaling-up the patented bioprocesses I have developed and optimized over the last years. My scientific productivity is validated by the 64 papers I have published in international scientific periodicals (all indexed to Web of Science), most of which are in the first quartile (Q1).. My scientific publications also include 12 book chapters, 91 communications in Conferences and 5 International Patents. I have over 1500 citations and an h-index of 24, according to SCOPUS. I have supervised 7 PhD Theses and 26 Masters Theses concluded between 2007 and 2019. Currently, I supervise 6 PhD students and 3 Masters Students. My Research Team also includes 2 Research Assistants. My teaching activity, initiated in 2011, includes lecturing classes of the Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering areas, and the tutorial supervision of undergraduated students, at the Chemistry Department, at FCT/UNL.

Dulcineia Ferreira Wessel. PhD in Chemistry and a Master in Material Engineering (University of Aveiro, Portugal). Assistant Professor and researcher at Polytechnic Institute of Viseu (PV). Formerly director of the Department of Food Industries (2006-2008) and Vice-President of the Agrarian Executive Council. Responsible Researcher (2006–2009) of PTDC/AGR-ALI/74587/2006 DRIED PEAR “Promotion of dried pear with scientific methodology”; Coordinator at PV (2013–2015) of QREN PROFITAPPLE; (2017-2020) MOBFOOD; (2017-2020) PDR2020-1.0.1-FEDER-032314-WASTE2VALUE “Valuation of agricultural by-products for animal feed, biodegradable plastics and treatment of animal effluents"; (2018-2021) BAGACONVALOR.

The scope of my current research is centered on Glyco-Sciences including fundamental and applied thematics. One key action is underlying the molecular and cellular processes involved in the production of Glycan-optimized recombinant proteins. Another, in cooperation with Pharma and Biotech industries, is to develop strategies enabling the synthesis of recombinant proteins with tailored homogenous glycosylation and to identify those glycoforms that better suit or improve the efficacy of the product and thus suitable for pharmaceutical and diagnostic applications.
I have been involved in fundamental studies in plant biology and on development and implementation of plant biotechnology methods with application in industry and medicine. I have 27 years’ experience in molecular genetics and cell biology and 18 in the field of plant N-glycosylation/glycobiology with a broad relevance to many areas of basic research, biomedicine and biotechnology industries. 
In the past 18 years my main focus of research has been the study of the impact of glycosylation on protein-protein interactions as well as on glyco-modulation towards optimization of glycan structures that can increase efficacy of human therapeutically proteins. 
Our work at the Glycobiology division of the DAGZ has launched BOKU as the most successful and prominent University working on plant glyco-engineering with international recognition. We developed a technology that combines the use of tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) transgenic plants as expression hosts for the production of high levels of therapeutic proteins with “humanized” glycosylation. This success is highlighted by the use of glyco-mutant plants generated in our laboratories as expression host for the production of ZMapp, an antibody cocktail used during the Ebola outbreak 2014–2015 (Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc); the personalized vaccine to treat patients with follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (IconGenetics GmbH); and with the efficient production of vaccines against seasonal flu. 
Our research greatly contributed for the development of plant-base production platforms that allows the generation of highly active biopharmaceutical products obtained by an optimized N-glycosylation profile and to the development of drugs with optimal therapeutic potency.

Pedro Bule completed his Masters in Veterinary Medicine in 2010 at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, having been awarded the “Nunes Petisca” prize for best pathologic anatomy student, by the Portuguese Society of Veterinary Sciences. In 2017, he completed his PhD in Veterinary Science, also at the University of Lisbon, where he worked on the functional and structural characterization of protein-protein interactions involved in Cellulosome assembly, a multi-enzyme complex with high cellulolytic activity.

In 2018, he was selected for a postdoc position at the York Structural Biology Lab (University of York) to work with Prof. Gideon Davies on an ERC funded project. His main work concerned the development of activity based probes and inhibitors for heparanase, a glycoside hydrolase involved in cancer metastization, neovascularization and inflammation. He has authored 37 publications, including 35 international peer-reviewed articles and 2 book chapters. He is the PI of three projects, including a Portugal 2020, an FCT and a Gilead Genesis funded project.

Currently, he leads the Glycobiology and Structural Enzymology group at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health (CIISA) from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - ULisboa.
His work is mainly focused on the characterization of novel CAZymes and cellulosomal proteins, and on the development of new glycan based technologies with multiple applications, including cancer immunotherapy, microbiology and animal nutrition.