Advisory Board and Editors Microbiology
Xosé Anxelu G. Morán
Research Professor at the Oceanographic Center of Gijón/Xixón (IEO, CSIC), Spain. I was Associate Professor of Marine Science, Red Sea Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, from 2014 to 2020 (currently adjunct). I joined the IEO in 2001 after my PhD training at the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM, CSIC) in Barcelona. I am a biological oceanographer and microbial ecologist addressing the role of microbial plankton in biogeochemical carbon cycling from different perspectives. My research interests include the trophic relationships between phytoplankton and heterotrophic prokaryotes, the long-term dynamics of planktonic microorganisms and their response to global change, with particular emphasis on warming using the metabolic ecology framework. I combine experimental approaches with large-scale observations, both spatial and temporal, in order to predict the future direction and extent of change in the structure and functioning of marine microbial food webs.
Monika Mortimer
Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Tallinn, Estonia. Research interests and experience include ecotoxicology, environmental effects of engineered nanomaterials, fate and transport of contaminants of emerging concern, and microbiology.
Craig L Moyer
My specialty is the marine microbial ecology and geomicrobiology of hydrothermal vent systems. I also maintain interests in terrestrial and aquatic microbial ecology, microbe-macrobe symbiotic relationships, bioremediation and microbial cycles that impact global climate change. My focus has been the study of microbial mats in and around hydrothermal vents, this includes the biodiversity and biogeography of the Zetaproteobacteria.
Felipe G Naveca
I am a microbiologist with experience in classical and molecular techniques applied to the study of human pathogens, mainly threatening RNA and DNA viruses. My research focuses on developing diagnostic tools, molecular epidemiology, and evolution, mostly on emergent and reemergent viruses. My team approaches include genomics and phylogenetic studies to characterize known and unknown viruses; field studies on arboviral emergence in a rural area in the Brazilian Amazon; immunogenetics studies related to susceptibility or resistance against microbial infections; studies on biomarkers of acute viral illness; in vitro & in vivo virus-host interactions and evolution; and SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses molecular epidemiology. Senior investigator of Fiocruz Amazonas and Deputy Director of Research and Innovation. Member of the Brazilian Society for virology since 1997. Member of the Brazilian network of specialists in Zika and correlated diseases.
Craig E Nelson
I am a microbial systems biologist specializing in the structure and function of natural bacterial communities in aquatic habitats such as coral reefs, lakes, streams, and the open ocean. My research broadly seeks to identify novel bacteria and understand their role in ecosystem processes and biogeochemical transformations. Much of my work centers around culture-independent phylogenetic and metagenomic characterization of natural microbial communities and measurement of biogeochemical processes and chemical constituents in the surrounding environment which regulate and are regulated by these microbes. I maintain ancillary projects understanding the microbiomes of eukarya (corals, humans, amphibians, macroalgae) and studying bacterial pathogens in natural waters in the context of water quality.
Bernd Neumann
Dr. Bernd Neumann is a German scientist in the field of microbiology. He has a Bachelor´s (B.Sc.) and Master´s (M.Sc.) degree in Human Biology from the University of Greifswald, Division Physiological Proteomics and Bioinformatics at the Institute for Microbiology (supervisor Katharina Riedel). He holds a PhD (Dr.rer.nat.) in Biology from the Technical University of Braunschweig. For his PhD and as PostDoc he worked at the Robert Koch Institute, Division of nosocomial pathogens and antibiotic resistances at the Department of infectious diseases.
Currently he is working as scientist at the Nuremberg General Hospital, Institute for hospital hygiene, medical microbiology and infectious diseases, that also is a university institute of the Paracelsus Medical University. He is working on antimicrobial resistant bacteria (ESKAPE-group) and resistance-mediating mobile genetic elements in the healthcare environment, mainly using molecular approaches as next-generation sequencing.
Irene L.G. Newton
Assistant Professor of Biology in the Microbiology section. Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellow, Andrew Mellon fellow, and advisor to the Social Science Research Counsel, former Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellow and former NSF postdoctoral fellow.
Marisa Fabiana Nicolás
Dr. Marisa Fabiana Nicolás is a biologist with a Ph.D. in Genetics. She worked as a protein annotator in the UniProt/Swiss-Prot database from 2005 to 2007. Since May 2009 she is an Associate Researcher at the Bioinformatics Laboratory (Labinfo) at LNCC/MCTI Brazil. Dr. Nicolas has experience in Genetics, Molecular Biology, Genomics, and Bioinformatics. She works mainly in Bioinformatics applied to the analysis of genomes and transcriptomes (RNAseq and scRNAseq) and metabolic and regulatory networks in clinically relevant pathogens.
Franco Nigro
Full Professor of Plant Pathology at the Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences of the University of Bari - Aldo Moro. He holds the courses "Biotechnology for the Health and Safety of Vegetable Production integrated with the Certification of Agri-food Production" (Master's Degree in Biotechnology for Food Quality and Safety), and the module of Phytopathological Bacteriology (Bachelor Degree in Agricultural Science and Technology). The research activity focus on some relevant diseases of olive trees (quick decline syndrome, verticillium wilt, anthracnose, cercosporiosis), citrus fruits (Phytophthora root rot, and “mal secco” diseases), stone fruit (white root rot). Recently, he also reported the occurrence of Candidatus Phytoplasma phoenicium, a quarantine pathogen of the almond tree, in Apulia.
Corey Nislow
Corey Nislow's laboratory develops and uses cutting edge tools to address this central question: how can we understand the biological commonalities in all of the life sciences; from embryonic development, to the spread of infectious diseases to better ways to treat cancer. Each of these disciplines can be explained in the context of competition, interaction and evolution. His lab studies the interface between genes and the environment using parallel genome-wide screens, high throughput cell-based assays and next generation sequencing. Most recently, he and his scientific partner, Dr. Guri Giaever, are exploring how laboratory experiments can co-opt evolutionary processes to understand drug action. He enjoys teaching all aspects of biotechnology, genomics and drug discovery. He got his PhD from the University of Colorado, worked at several Biotechnology companies and was at Stanford and University of Toronto before joining UBC in 2013. He has published 161 papers and run 19 marathons.
Barbara Nowak
Barbara is Professor at the University of Tasmania (UTAS), where she leads Aquatic Animal Health research group. Barbara has her PhD from Sydney University and has been working at UTAS since 1991. Her research interests focus on various aspects of fish health, such as fish parasitology, fish immunology and fish pathology. Barbara has published over 200 papers and supervised more than 30 PhD students. She has received awards for her research and supervision of PhD students.
Conor P O'Byrne
Director of the Bacterial Stress Response Group, Senior lecturer in Microbiology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. The research focus in my group is on the molecular mechanisms that food-borne bacterial pathogens use to sense and respond to harsh conditions in their environment. Pathogens encounter major physicochemical changes as they transition from food into the host, particularly in relation to pH, osmolarity, oxygen concentration, light and temperature. Understanding how pathogenic bacteria detect and respond to these changes is critical if we are to devise sensible strategies to prevent their entry into the food chain and to prevent infections from arising in the human population. In my laboratory we study two important food-borne pathogens, Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli.