board members esmb 2022-2023

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President
concetta maria messina

Concetta is PhD in aquaculture and quality of fish, Associate professor in aquatic production from fishery and aquaculture at University of Palermo (Italy) and in green biotechnology and intelligent mariculture at the international master course on marine biotechnology at University of Brest (France). In the last decade she was coordinator and local unit supervisor of many National and International research projects related to the domain of blue-growth, to the sustainable use of marine resources, to their valorization by a biotechnological approach. She has active international collaborations, thanks to the projects and also to the Erasmus network and international teaching experiences. She is co-author of scientific papers and books chapters related to the domain of aquaculture and marine biotechnology, component of the Editorial Board of the journal Marine Biotechnology and Aquaculture International (Springer), scientific board member of the Italian association for the study of microalgae (AISAM) and of Italian Society of Experimental Biology (SIBS 1925).

past president
sergey dobretsov

Sergey is the UNESCO Chair in Marine Biotechnology, the Board Member of the International Society for Marine Biotechnology, the Director of the Centre of Excellence in Marine Biotechnology, a Full Professor at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. Previously, he was the President of the ESMB. He has worked with polar, temporal and tropical marine benthic communities for more than 28 years in leading biofouling research centres in Russia, Hong Kong, Germany and the USA. His main field of research focuses on biotechnology for the development of new non-toxic antifouling solutions, microbial chemical interactions and novel antimicrobials. He has participated in several international projects in these areas. His discoveries are widely published in international peer-reviewed journals (>150), books (2), book chapters (10) and patents (5). He is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Otto-Kinne Foundation, and George E. Burch. He is on the editorial boards of the journals Marine Ecology Progress Series, Biofouling, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and Frontiers.

secretary
maria salta

Maria is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Microbiology, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of Portsmouth, UK, and Academic Lead for the National Biofilm Innovation Centre (NBIC), University of Portsmouth, UK. Her experience in marine biotechnology spans over a decade where she has worked towards discovering novel antifouling technologies through bioinspired material deriving from the marine environment. In addition, Maria’s work focuses on understanding biofilm dynamics in the marine environment. MS has established collaborations with a number of UK and EU companies and research institutions in Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Oman, The Netherlands, USA, Singapore and China. She has strong links with key industrial partners such as HEMPEL A/S, International Paints - AkzoNobel, Lloyds’ Register, Carnival and several SMEs throughout Europe. Maria is a reviewer for over 30 peer reviewed journals and expert reviewer for the governmental funding bodies Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK), Irish Research Council (Ireland); National Biofilm Innovation Centre (UK), Programme Nazionale Di Ricerche in Antarctica (PNRA) (Italy) and Horizons2020. As part of her academic duties, Maria is the Lead for Placement and Employability at the School of Biological Sciences for UG students.

treasurer
jean-pascal berge

Jean-Pascal holds a PhD and a HdR (autorisation to conduct research) in marine biology and is involved in marine biotechnology since 27 years. He is a senior scientist, President of BioThot and has a broad expertise in bioprocessing, biorefinery and biomass conversion into marketable products. He acts as an expert for the European Commission and FAO. He has built up a very large international network of scientific and technical partners and clients. He is author of more than 50 A1 publications on sustainable development issues and has trained 16 PhD candidates and over 40 Master students in these practices.

elected board member
renata denaro

Renata Denaro is a Researcher at the Water Research Institute of the National Research Council and Professor of Marine Microbial Biotechnology at the University of Tor Vergata (Rome). She is awarded in Biological Sciences, awarded Ph.D in Biochemical and Biomolecular Sciences. Her work experience is on marine biotechnology, focusing on bioremediation based on bacteria able to degrade hydrocarbons and plastic in marine environment. Products from marine bacteria (eg. siderophore) are as well objects of her study. Renata was involved in many national and international research projects and also in the ERANET Marine Biotechnology. Currently, she is member of the working group on Marine Biotechnology of the ERANET BlueBio Cofund. She is author of more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and 10 book chapters, she is co-inventor of a patent for industrial invention (process + apparatus).

elected board member
roberto T. Abdala diaz

Prof. Roberto T. Abdala Díaz, earned a Master’s degree in Chemistry from Saint Petersburg State University in Russia in 1985, and Ph.D. in Biological Science from Malaga University in Spain in 2001. Currently he teaches at the Ecology Department of Malaga University. His research interests are focused on the development of marine biotechnological processes and the treatment of wastewater (urban, pig farm, aquaculture), environmental biotechnology, and mixotrophic cultivation of microalgae in different photobioreactors. He has developed techniques for separation and purification of various metabolites of algae, especially polysaccharides with antitumor and immunomodulatory properties and he has extensive experience in the extraction of bioactive compounds from marine organisms for use in medicine and pharmacology. He has over 25 publications in refereed journals and has supervised two Ph.D. thesis in 2012 and other two are being developed. He is professor of the Advanced Biotechnology Master at Malaga University, and teaches Marine Biotechnology and Environmental Biotechnology in the Degree of Biochemistry, and Ecology in the Degree of Biology and Environmental Sciences. He has worked with different International relationships such as the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the Concepción University, Tarapacá University and Catholic University of the North of Chile; University of Baja California and the CICESE of Mexico; University of Incheon South Korea, among others. He has directed several research projects and currently work on the European project “SABANA”. “Sustainable Integrated Algae Biorefinery for the Production of Bioactive Compounds for Agriculture and Aquaculture.”

elected board member
tiago H. silva

Tiago is Senior Researcher at 3B’s Research Group, ICVS/3B’s Associate Laboratory – University of Minho (Portugal), being coordinator of Marine Inspired Biomaterials research area. He has a PhD in Chemistry (2006) at Faculty of Sciences – University of Porto (Portugal), being visiting researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) in 2003. He has more than 11 years of experience in valorization of marine resources and by-products, leading his team to the establishment
of methodologies for the production of biopolymers from marine resources and derived by-products and further use them on the development of biomaterials for tissue regeneration. Marine biomimetics is also being explored, looking into particular features and phenomena of marine invertebrates as inspiration for the design of innovative biomedical applications.

ELECTED BOARD MEMBER
GIOVANNA ROMANO
Giovanna Romano is senior researcher at of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, in the Eco-sustainable Marine Biotechnology department (www.szn.it).
She graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Naples Federico II, summa cum laude. Scholarship holder in Biochemistry for six years and subsequently permanent researcher at the SZN.
The major focus of her past research activities was the effects and mechanisms of action of bioactive secondary metabolites from marine diatoms using different in vitro and in vivo model systems.
She was involved in several Italian and EU projects focusing on drug discovery from marine microalgae and she coordinated a bilateral project Italy-South Africa aiming at identifying new biosynthetic pathways for valuable compounds in diatoms, though a genome-mining approach.
Current research interest is the identification and exploitation of diatom-derived natural compounds for the development of new products for pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical and nutraceutical applications, with a special attention on the study of pathways involved in the biosynthesis of valuable molecules.
Dr. Romano is partner in the SZN-CNR spin-off company BioSEArch srl, founded in 2016 for the development of new pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical compounds from marine microalgae.  https://www.biosearchsrl.com/

industry representative
jean-paul cadoret

Jean-Paul is Managing Director of the private Marine Biotech Company Greensea. With a Master degree in Marine Biology and a PhD in Applied Molecular Biology. HDR at University of Nantes. Since 1988, he has been successively Researcher, Team leader, Lab Director and Unit Director in the governmental Institute IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea). Author of 70 publications and 7 patents. Co-Founder of the company Algenics, its specialities in the general frame of marine biotechnology focus on the physiology/biotechnological valorization of microalgae.

university of Brest representative
Claire hellio

Claire currently holds a chair of marine chemical ecology at the University of Brest. Her main field of research focuses on a biomimetic approach and biotechnology for the development of new antifouling paints and the discovery of new bioactive compounds. She has participated to several EU projects in these areas. As an academic, Claire is actively involved in Erasmus exchanges promotion for UG and PG students.

University of Brest holds the official address of ESMB, and as such has a permanent chair at the board.

ELECTED STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE
ELEONORA CURCURACI
Eleonora is currently enrolled as a PhD student at the University of Palermo (Department of Earth and Marine Sciences, DISTEM), in the Laboratory of Marine Biochemistry and Ecotoxicology of Trapani (Italy) under the supervision of Doctor Andrea Santulli and Doctor Concetta Maria Messina, in collaboration with the Laboratoire des Sciences de l’Environment Marin (LEMAR), supervised by Professor Claire Hellio (Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France) as foreign tutor of the PhD project entitled: “Production of high value-added nutraceuticals in a multitrophic aquaculture system within a closed-circuit marine hatchery (NUTRAQUA)”. The main objective of the NUTRAQUA project is to combine aquaculture and biotechnology through the extraction and the characterisation of bioactive compounds, obtained from extractives species associated to fish, and their potential utilisation in nutraceutical field.

publisher's representative
victoria ferrara

Victoria has a degree in English Literature from Queens College, New York and has been involved in scientific publishing for nearly 30 years.  After starting her career working as an Editorial Assistant for the American Thoracic Society, she joined SpringerNature in 1994 and was appointed Senior Editor in the Medicine & Life Science journals division in 2005.  Her responsibilities have included launching a number of new Clinical Medicine titles and developing a global audience for those publications. Victoria’s publishing portfolio currently includes a number of proprietary and society-owned Aquatic and Polar Science journals in both hybrid and open access format.  Victoria is based at the SpringerNature US headquarters in downtown Manhattan.

The official journal of ESMB is Marine Biotechnology, published by Springer. This publisher has a permanent seat at the board of ESMB. ​

honorary member of the board
torger børresen

Torger currently works as a consultant in TabCon Marine Biotech & Seafood. He has for many years been a member of ESMB, and has research interests in converting marine biomass to food, feed and other products. His general background is biochemistry and aquatic food. He has served on several working groups on Marine Biotechnology, of which can be mentioned the European Marine Board-ESF ad hoc group for drafting Position Paper 15 ‘Marine Biotechnology: A new vision and strategy for Europe’. Recently, he also participated in the preparation of ‘Marine Biotechnology Strategic Research and Innovation Roadmap’, published by ERA-NET MarineBiotech

honorary member of the board
grant burgess

Grant currently holds the Chair of Marine Biotechnology at Newcastle University. He is Founding Editor of the journal “Marine Biotechnology” and has research interests in marine microbial ecology, drug discovery, and in understanding how bacterial biofilms can be removed. Grant has worked with the ESMB for many years and currently works to promote the Society and its activities with countries outside Europe.