Omayra Beatriz Ferreiro Balbuena is a researcher in the Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Chemical Sciences, and in the bio and materials group, Polytechnic Faculty of the National University of Asunción (UNA), Paraguay. She earned a graduate degree in chemical engineering at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of UNA, where she also teaches science and resistance of materials, and characterization of materials. From the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she earned her MsC degree in metallurgical and materials engineering, and her DSc degree in chemical engineering. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Faculty of Physical Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Her research interests cover membrane science and technology for food applications and wastewater treatment; the fabrication of polymeric materials for food packaging; and biomedical applications such as drug release systems. She has studied the use of waste to extract compounds of interest to industry, including the extraction of dyes such as anthocyanins, and other bioactive compounds for the food industry, as well as the extraction of collagen from fish skin.

Cristina Romero-Rodríguez is a professor and head of the Department of Chemical Biology, at the National University of Asunción (UNA), in Paraguay, where she is also an assistant professor of biochemistry. She obtained a degree in biochemistry from the Faculty of Chemical Sciences (UNA). Then she earned a Master of Science in cellular, molecular, and genetic biotechnology, and a PhD in biosciences and agrifood sciences both from the University of Cordoba, Spain. Her research interests are in biological science and focus on the study of plant-microorganism interaction that she investigates through biochemical and proteomic approaches. Romero-Rodríguez is an active member of the National Incentive Program for Researchers of the National Council of Science and Technology of Paraguay. In the last five years, she has participated in seven financed projects (three as principal investigator), which allowed the development of a master's thesis, and the building of capabilities to develop doctoral programs in biological sciences in Paraguay. She serves as an associated editor for Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology and is a member of the editorial board of other national journals.