Invited Speakers

Eeva Vainio

Forest Health and Biodiversity group, Natural Resources Institute Finland

Dr. Eeva Vainio works in the Forest Health and Biodiversity group in the Natural Resources Institute Finland. Her research has focused on the development of sustainable solutions for controlling soilborne and root-associated fungal and oomycete pathogens of forest trees and crop plants, recently focusing on viral control agents.

Ljubo Barbić

Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases with Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Prof Ljubo Barbić is a full professor at the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases with Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb. He graduated from the same institution in 1999 and received his PhD in 2007 on the molecular epidemiology of equine influenza.

József Kónya

Medical Microbiology Department, University of Debrecen, Hungary

József Kónya graduated as medical doctor and specialized in Medical Microbiology. He earned PhD and DSc degrees mainly on human papillomavirus field. He started as a university teacher at Medical Microbiology Department, Debrecen, Hungary and presently he is the head of the department. In 2023, he was elected the president of the Hungarian Society for Microbiology.

Mart Krupovic

Department of Microbiology, Institut Pasteur, France

Mart Krupovic is the Head of the Archaeal Virology Unit in the Department of Microbiology at Institut Pasteur of Paris, France. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 in General Microbiology from the University of Helsinki, Finland. His current research focuses on the diversity, origin, and evolution of the virosphere as well as on the molecular mechanisms of virus-host interactions in archaea.

Sebastien Massart

Liege University, Belgium

Prof. Sebastien Massart is a plant pathologist interested in diagnostics improvement, plant virology and plant microbiome research. He started his academic position in 2015 and is currently managing a team of 15 scientists in plant pathology. He has been deeply involved in the development of HTS technologies for plant pest diagnostics and has coordinated the writing of international guidelines for their use in routine diagnostics.

Letizia Botella Sanchez

Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic

I have developed my scientific carrier in the field of Plant and Forest Pathology. Although I am interested in all the aspects and factors involved in plant and tree pathosystems from the molecular to the ecological level, I am mostly focused on the study of the occurrence and diversity of viruses on fungal and oomycete tree pathogens.

Tatjana Vilibić-Čavlek

Croatian Institute of Public Health and the School of Medicine University of Zagreb

Assoc. Prof. Tatjana Vilibić-Čavlek, MD., Medical Microbiology Specialist, works at the Croatian Institute of Public Health (CIPH) and the School of Medicine University of Zagreb. She is the Head of the Reference Center for Diagnosis and Surveillance of Viral Zoonoses Croatian Ministry of Health and the National Reference Laboratory for Arboviruses at CIPH. She has […]

Vanda Juranić Lisnić

Center for Proteomics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Medicine

Vanda Juranić Lisnić is associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Rijeka Croatia where she teaches Molecular biology with genetic engineering and Biological therapeutics. Her scientific interests are basic biology and immunology, and pathogenesis of viral infections, with special emphasis on cytomegalovirus

Tamas Petrovic

Scientific Veterinary Institute "Novi Sad", Serbia

Tamas Petrovic, D.V.M., M.Sc, PhD, Principal Research Fellow, Scientific field: Microbiology – virology. Graduated at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Belgrade, 1997. Master thesis and doctoral dissertation defended on the same faculty in 2002 and 2006. Scientific titles: 1998 Research Trainee; 2002 Research Assistant; 2007 Research Associate; 2011 Senior Research Associate and 2016 […]

Maja Jagušić

Center for Research and Knowledge Transfer in Biotechnology at the University of Zagreb, Hrvatska

Maja Jagušić is a researcher at the University of Zagreb’s Centre for Research and Knowledge Transfer in Biotechnology. Her dedication to mumps virus research stems from her work in the vaccine industry focusing on optimisation of production of live-attenuated vaccines and their quality control.

Sanda Ravlić

Center for Research and Knowledge Transfer in Biotechnology at the University of Zagreb, Hrvatska

Sanda Ravlić is currently employed as a research associate at the Center for Research and Knowledge Transfer in Biotechnology at the University of Zagreb. She earned her doctorate at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, focusing on genetics in ecotoxicological research. During her postdoctoral work, she specialized in cellular aging.

Nataša Lindič

Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Nataša Lindič is a researcher at the Department for Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology, Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is interested in human pathogens and in the many ways they interact with the host cell. During her PhD, she studied host antiviral proteins inhibiting retrotransposons and retroviruses. She is currently working on nosocomial microbial pathogens and their surface proteins relevant to drug design.

Jasmina Vraneš

School of Medicine, University of Zagreb

Born: Gospic, 1961. Education: Zagreb University Medical School (1984), M.Sc. (1989) Ph.D. (1993). Specialization: Postgraduate Study in Clinical Paediatrics at Zagreb University Medical School (1984–1985), Postgraduate Study in Medical Microbiology at Zagreb University Medical School (1986–1987), specialization in Medical Microbiology and Parasitology (1986–1989), Professional training at Medical Microbiology and Immunology Department at University Medical School […]

Igor Jurak

Faculty of Biotechnology and Drug Development, University of Rijeka, Croatia

Igor Jurak is head of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology at the Faculty of Biotechnology and Drug Development at the University of Rijeka.

Snježana Židovec Lepej

University Hospital for Infectious Diseases „Dr. Fran Mihaljevic“, Croatia

Prof. Snježana Židovec Lepej, PhD is a Head of Department of Immunological and Molecular Diagnostics, University Hospital for Infectious Diseases „Dr. Fran Mihaljevic“ in Zagreb, Croatia and an associate professor of human infectious diseases at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb. She graduated molecular biology at the Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb where she subsequently obtained her MSc and PhD.

Tina Uršič

Institut of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Res. Assoc., Dr. Tina Uršič, BSc Microbiology, started in 2004 as a PhD student in the Laboratory for Viral Infections at the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana. She is a dedicated postdoctoral research assistant with expertise and her main focus is clinical diagnostics of viral infections, viral dynamics, epidemiology, and molecular methods for respiratory viruses, especially HBoV1.

Sunčanica Ljubin-Sternak

Teaching Institute for Public Health Dr. Andrija Štampar, Croatia

Sunčanica Ljubin-Sternak is a Medical Doctor, Clinical Microbiology Specialist/Consultant and a Head of the Molecular Microbiology Department at the Teaching Institute for Public Health Dr. Andrija Štampar in Zagreb, Croatia. She is also a Full Professor at the Department of Medical Microbiology of the University of Zagreb School of Medicine, where she coordinates and leads a postgraduate study programme in clinical microbiology.

Dragomira Majhen

Ruđer Bošković Institute, Croatia

Dragomira Majhen holds a PhD in molecular biology and biochemisty and is currently employed as a senior scientist at Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb.

Lorena Jemeršić

Croatian Veterinary Institute, Croatia

Prof. Lorena Jemeršić, PhD, DVM works at the Virology Department of the Croatian Veterinary Institute (CVI) in Zagreb, Croatia. She is mostly involved in investigating emerging and re-emerging viral infections of animals.

Francesco di Serio

Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection of the National Research Council of Italy, Italy

F. Di Serio, research director at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection of the National Research Council of Italy, focused his research activity on plant protection, mainly viruses and viroids.

Beatriz Navarro Ramirez

Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection of the Italian National Research Council, Italy

Beatriz Navarro is a senior researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection of the Italian National Research Council (Bari, Italy). Her research focuses on the study of the molecular interactions between viroids/virus and their host plants.

Éva Várallyay

Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Hungary

Éva Várallyay, a biology and chemistry teacher graduate, has been affiliated with the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute (now the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences) since 1990. After completing her PhD in biochemistry, she delved into virology and later into plant development biology, focusing on the molecular mechanisms of RNAi during virus infection.

Denis Kutnjak

Department of Biotechnology and Systems Biology of the National Institute of Biology, Slovenia

Dr. Denis Kutnjak, a researcher at the Department of Biotechnology and Systems Biology of the National Institute of Biology in Ljubljana, Slovenia, leads the Microbiology research unit. He also teaches as an assistant professor at the University of Ljubljana. His research spans biology, biodiversity, evolution, and epidemiology of microbes, with a focus on plant pathogens, particularly viruses.

Beata Halassy

Centre for Research and Knowledge Transfer in Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Beata Halassy, PhD is a senior scientist and a group leader at the University of Zagreb’s Centre for Research and Knowledge Transfer in Biotechnology with expertise in the field of virology, immunology and toxinology.

Santiago F. Elena

Institute for Integrative Systems Biology, Spain

Santiago Elena, CSIC professor and co-chair at I2SysBio, specializes in RNA virus adaptation. He’s also an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. With a PhD from the University of Valencia, his research combines experimental evolution, molecular biology, and mathematical modeling to understand virus-host interactions.