Fabián Sáenz is research professor at the Center for Health Reasearch in Latin America of PUCE in Quito. Sáenz did his doctoral studies in the programme of Infectious Diseases at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, where he earned his PhD in Parasitology and Vector Biology in 2008. Sáenz focused his research on malaria, particularly on the role of the protein MAEBL from Plasmodium falciparum in the invasion by the parasite of red blood cells in the human host and of the salivary glands in the the mosquito Anopheles. Sáenz was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of South Florida (USF) from 2008 to 2011. During this time he participated in projects related to the discovery of anti-malaria drugs and in studies of drug resistance mechanisms. He was involved in the analysis of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of artemisinin combination therapies. Currently, Dr. Sáenz's work focuses in supporting malaria elimination in Ecuador through the use of molecular tools for diagnosis and the study of population dynamics and drug resistance in the malaria parasites well as the research of natural products with antimalarial activities.

Pharmacist and PhD in Biological Chemistry from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Andrea Paula-Lima developed her post-doctorate at the University of Chile, where she is currently Associate Professor of the Faculty of Dentistry and Faculty of Medicine. For her professional contribution to the study of Alzheimer's disease (AD), she won the Junior Faculty Award from the AAT-ADPD in 2011 (Barcelona, Spain) and in 2013 (Florence, Italy). She received distinctions from important scientific societies such as the Society for Neurosciences (USA), the National Academy of Sciences of Chile and Brazil, the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, Foundation Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, and the Royal Society. Using experimental models ranging from the in vitro to the study in patients, she is interested in elucidating and blocking the intraneuronal signaling pathways activated by beta-amyloid peptide oligomers, emphasizing those pathways dependent on calcium ion as the second messenger. She is also searching for functional alterations detectable by fEEG in patients to contribute to the early diagnosis of AD.

Mauricio F. Erben (PhD in chemistry, 2005) has been regular Adjunct Professor for Inorganic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of the University of La Plata (UNPL) in Argentina since 2009. His area of study involves the preparation of novel small species, mainly organosulfur compounds. Fundamental properties as well as potential applications are investigated. He has made important contributions to the understanding of the relationship between the gas phase molecular and electronic structure of molecular systems. His work is characterized by the use of a battery of spectroscopic techniques, including synchrotron-based photoionization experiments for determining valence- and core-electron distribution for selected molecules. He has been honored with the Award for scientific, technical and artistic labor at the University of La Plata (1st edition, 2010) and the National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Argentina, "José Galvele" prize (2012), in the category young researcher for his outstanding scientific achievements. His applied work recieved the "Innovar" 2017 award in Applied Reseach by Ministery of Science, Technology and Innovation (MinCyT), Argentina.

I received my Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the P. Universidad Católica de Chile, studying the enzymology and genomics of lignin degradation by white rot fungi with Dr. Rafael Vicuña. Then, as a PEW Latin American Fellow, I went to the lab of Jay C. Dunlap (Dartmouth Medical School), where as a postdoc I became interested in fungal functional genomics, photobiology, and circadian regulation, developing different tools such as a high-throughput platform for in vivo circadian studies in Neurospora crassa. In 2009, I joined the P. Universidad Católica de Chile, where currently I am Full Professor and since 2018 the director of the Millennium Institute for Integrative Biology (iBio) (previously Millennium Nucleus for Fungal Integrative and Synthetic Biology, 2014-2017) and a HHMI International Research Scholar. Work conducted in my lab, has contributed to advance the understanding of circadian timing, the role of clock-regulation on plant-pathogen interactions, general transcriptional mechanisms, and the effect of light on fungal transcriptional programs, and synthetic transcriptional circuits as well.