Ivan Rychlik (Czech Republic)
Prof. Ivan Rychlik is a leader of Salmonella research group at the Veterinary Research Institute in Brno, Czech Republic and professor at the Veterinary University, Brno, Czech Republic. His group consists of 10 members and main research interests include characterisation of chicken and pig gut microbiota with special emphasis on the identification of chicken gut microbiota members restricting Salmonella and Campylobacter colonisation and pig microbiota members increasing piglet resistance to Clostridium perfringens.
Prof. Rychlik also acts as editor of journals Microbiome and Animal Microbiome. Based on his research, he and his groups introduced a new probiotic product QuoCNA intended for use in newly hatched chicks. The product consists of a defined mixture of 9 different strict gut anaerobes and is commercially available in the Czech Republic since 2024.
Luis Fernando Romero (Portugal)
Luis Fernando Romero is the Founder and CEO of BIOFRACTAL, a company focused on detecting and solving nutritional limitations and sub-clinical issues that limit the profitability and sustainability of animal production by using gene expression technologies and AI.
Luis has 20+ years of international experience in innovation leadership, animal nutrition & health, and animal production. After managing poultry grandparent and broiler breeder operations at the beginning of his career, he obtained a PhD in Animal Science at the University of Alberta in Canada in 2008. He led innovation teams, innovation strategy and project portfolio, in Danisco/DuPont Animal Nutrition (UK, 2008-2017) and DSM Animal Nutrition and Health (Switzerland, 2017-2020).
Luis is passionate about developing science-based solutions that benefit the people producing animal protein, their animals, the end-consumers, and society at large.
Richard Ducatelle (Belgium)
Graduated as veterinarian from University of Ghent in Belgium in 1978. He then completed a PhD in veterinary pathology in 1983. He was a scientific advisor to the Belgium government from 1984 to 1989 and has been Professor in Veterinary Pathology at the University of Ghent from 1989 till 2020. He has been a member of the board of directors of Ghent university from 2008 till 2020. Currently he is emeritus professor and part time scientist at Ghent university. He is diplomate of the ECVP and of the ECPVS. He was President of WVPA Belgian branch from 1991 till 2024 and also Past-President of the ESVP. He is the author or coauthor of more than 700 scientific publications listed in the Web of Science (h-index = 70) and more than 400 abstracts in proceedings of international congresses.
He has spoken at more than 200 national and international congresses. His research is mainly on intestinal health and on interactions of zoonotic agents with the animal host reservoir, with a focus on poultry (necrotic enteritis, dysbacteriosis, Salmonella) and on swine (gastric ulcers, Helicobacter). He has been mentor of 36 successfully defended PhD theses in this field of research.
Arne Jung (Germany)
Dr. Arne Jung is working as a researcher at the Clinic for Poultry of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany since 2005. He received his veterinary license in 2004, his doctoral degree in 2006 and received his postdoctoral lecture qualification in 2022. Since 2015 he is diplomate of the European College of Poultry Veterinary Science. Until now, he has published more than 50 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals and has given more than 30 public talks at scientific conferences.
His main research interest is bacterial diseases of poultry in genereal and Enterococcus cecorum associated disease in chickens in particular. Currently he is working on a project dealing with Enterococcus cecorum sensitivity to disinfectants.
Nadia Everaert (Belgium)
Nadia Everaert obtained a Master in Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven, Belgium in 2004. She finished her PhD at KU Leuven in 2008, on avian embryonic development. During her post-doctoral fellowship, she focused on birds as a model for fetal and nutritional programming. From 2013 until 2021, she was an associate professor at Liège University (Belgium). She focused her research on nutrition and health in pigs and poultry, with an emphasis on the microbiota and intestinal health.
Since October 2021, she came back to KU Leuven as an associate professor, and is now heading the Nutrition and Animal-Microbiota EcoSystems (NAMES) lab. Her research group continues to study microbiota colonization, gut health and gut function in monogastric species using in vivo and in vitro models. She has (co-) supervised 14 PhDs and is main promoter of 4 ongoing PhD students and has more than 150 peer-reviewed research papers.
Lonneke Vervelde (The Netherlands)
Lonneke graduated from Wageningen University and after obtaining a PhD, she continued her research on immune responses to avian pathogens at the Institute for Animal Health in Compton U.K. In 1998 she started at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in the Netherlands where she investigated ruminant immune responses to intestinal parasites. In 2002 she started her own research group on Avian Immunology and her main scientific interests are ever since focussed on how the innate immune responses to pathogens and vaccines in chicken drive adaptive responses and can be exploited for optimal protection. In 2013 she joined the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, where she became Professor in Veterinary Immunology.
She expanded her research to the field of in vitro mucosal organ cultures and organoids. In 2024 she started at Royal GD (Animal Health Service the Netherlands) as senior scientist continuing her work on organoids and novel immunological tools.
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