John Parkinson, PhD
John is a Senior Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and holds cross-appointments in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. Research in his group focuses on the application of computational and systems approaches to study the role of microbes in health and disease. Of particular interest is the application of metatranscriptomic and in silico modelling to study complex microbial communitites. Applied to poultry, John and his group are investigating the interactions between age, diet, prrebiotics, probiotics and biogeography on the structure and function of microbial communities in the chicken gut
Garret Suen
Garret Suen studies how symbiotic microbes convert biomass into usable nutrients for their herbivore hosts and how this is applicable to the production of biofuels. His research includes understanding the microbes associated with the deconstruction of biomass and what genetic or molecular mechanisms are used. In application, the highly efficient cellulose degraders found in these microbial communities could be applied to the breakdown of biomass material allowing biofuels to be created using less energy.
Emily Stein
Emily Stein, PhD. Founded Primal Health, LLC in 2017 to focus on improving the dental health of both humans and animals by producing oral microbiome modulation products. She has spent 12 years developing SMMRT technology at Primal Therapies, Inc., which is focused on using metabolic influences to re-engineer disease-causing bacterial biofilms into those that are health-promoting, to decrease inflammation and to improve outcomes. Prior to that, she spent 7 years as a research fellow at Stanford University in Rheumatology and Immunology focused on the neuro-endocrine-immune axis in autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases. She holds a Phd. in Microbiology from the University of California at Berkeley where she studied inter- and intra-cellular signalling pathways involved in stress response and community development in bacteria and received her B.S. in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Iowa where she studied the interaction between M. tuberculosis and innate immune cells
Ravi Sheth
Ravi Sheth is co-founder of Kingdom Supercultures, an ingredient and biotechnology company that designs and supplies a new class of natural ingredients (Supercultures) based on combinations of natural cultures. These Supercultures enable leading food, beverage and personal care manufacturers to create new products that are healthier, sustainable and natural. Ravi received his PhD from Columbia University as a Hertz and NSF fellow where his work studying the gut microbiome was published in top scientific journals including Science, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods and more. During his PhD, he also spent a summer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation working on childhood malnutrition. He received his undergraduate degree in bioengineering at Rice and where he cofounded an edtech startup, STEAMtrax, that was acquired by a public company.
Chrysi Sergaki
Jennifer Radosevich
Dr. Jennifer Radosevich is Worldwide Director of Research at Hill’s Pet Nutrition where she is responsible for leading the early research team to develop and accelerate new technologies for Hill’s products. She oversees the Nutrition Innovation, Bioinformatics and Research Laboratories teams to further research platforms including nutrigenetics, nutrigenomics, metabolomics, and microbiomics. She completed her PhD in Biochemistry/ Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology at Iowa State University and has over 25 years industry experience leveraging innovation to further business goals in the agribusiness, human and pet food markets.
Ching-Yen Lin
Alain Labbé, PhD
Itzhak Mizrahi
Prof. Itzhak Mizrahi is a professor at BGU leading the microbial ecogenomics group. His major research interests focus on understanding the microbial ecosystems of the rumen environment and other gut microbial ecosystems. Prof. Itzhak Mizrahi is internationally recognized in the field of rumen genomics and microbial ecology. He was granted the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) starting and consolidator grants by which he continues to pursue his research interests.