Scientific Committee

Dr. Jose M. Escribano from the Biotechnology department at the National Institute of Agrarian Research (INIA), Madrid, Spain is a world recognized leader in animal infectious diseases and recombinant protein production in non-fermentative systems with more than 70 scientific contributions in international journals and seven licensed patents. Dr Escribano has graduated from Complutense University in 1980 in Veterinary Medicine and he completed his Ph.D in the same University in 1986. He got a permanent position at INIA in 1987 and has over 20 years of experience in science management, being head of department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at INIA during different periods. He is on the editorial board of several virology and biotechnology journals and has supervised 14 doctoral thesis about virology, immunology, molecular farming and insects as bioreactors. About ten years ago he initiated a pioneer research line focused on the development of recombinant protein production platforms using non-fermentative systems based on plants and insects. In 2005 co-founded Alternative Gene Expression (ALGENEX) company.

Dr Covadonga Alonso MD, PhD, is a physician and scientist with more than fifteen years leadership experience in viral pathogenesis and more recently in biotechnology research and development. She has more than 40 scientific contributions in virology, pathology and cell biology journals and she has directed 4 doctoral thesis. Some of her publications have been awarded in different journals for their scientific relevance. Her scientific contributions clarified the role of apoptosis related virus genes in the pathogenesis of virus diseases (African swine fever virus, adenovirus, calicivirus, etc.). Dr Alonso actually focuses her attention in therapeutic targets for developing antiviral drugs.
Dr Alonso is a graduate of the Complutense University of Madrid School of Medicine with Extraordinary Prize Honours degree, in 1984. She carried out posdoctoral studies in Boston USA, at the Microbiology and Molecular Biology Dpt. at Tufts University School of Medicine.