Partners

EC DG JRC

Teresa Lettieri

Teresa Lettieri joined the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) to lead the molecular ecotoxicology and environmental molecular microbiology laboratories at the Institute for Environment and Sustainability in 2002. She is coordinating the revision process of the Priority Substances under the Water Frame Directive in collaboration with DG ENV and provide scientific and technical support to Drinking Water and Bathing Water Directive. She is coordinator and chair of the European Microbiology Group (EMEG). Her activities are focused on the development of specific and sensitive tools to investigate the anthropogenic pressures effects on the aquatic organisms and for the detection of microbial population changes and pathogens in water. She received her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Zürich (Switzerland) in 1999. She worked as post-doctoral fellow at Swiss Federal Technology Institute (ETH) in Zürich from 1999 to 2002.

European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre
Institute for Environment and Sustainability
Water Resources Unit
Ispra (VA), Italy

Email: teresa.lettieri@jrc.ec.europa.eu

CNR-IRSA

Anna Barra Caracciolo

Graduated in Biology in 1989 (Master’s degree), she then took her PhD in Ecology in 1995. Her main research field is the study of the fate of organic contaminants with particular regard to the role of the natural microbial community in degrading and removing these chemicals (biodegradation and bioremediation). The study of the natural microbial component involves the use of innovative molecular methods for assessing their structure (microbial abundance, diversity) and functioning (viability, activity).
She teaches (Adjunct Professor) Bioremediation in the Ecological Master Course at Rome Sapienza University and is the tutor of several students Master’ s and PhD experimental. In addition she is member of the SETAC Europe Council and of the SETAC Italian Branch Council and is currently involved in the Management Committee of the COST Action FP1305-BioLink and she is the Coordinator of the Microcokit Project. She is the author of about 100 publications including about 40 research papers and opinion paper in peer-reviewed journals and some book chapters.

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque
Via Salaria km 29,300 Monterotondo (Rome) 00015 Italy

Link: http://www.irsa.cnr.it

Email: barracaracciolo@irsa.cnr.it

MBA

Linda Medlin

Linda K. Medlin is currently a Research Fellow at the MBA and Head of Research at Microbia Environnement, France. Worked previously at the Observatoire Oceanologique of UPMC, France and at the AWI, Germany. Received Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1983 in marine botany. Expert in marine phytoplankton evolution/phylogenetics. Current research develops phylochips/microarrays/biosensors for early warning systems for toxic algae and freshwater pathogens and for analyzing marine biodiversity. Published 230 papers, 37 books chapters, two edited books and one manual for microarray analysis. Awarded 52 research grants of which 18 are EU. 3X winner of the Tyge Christensen award for best paper in Phycologia and the Provasoli award for best paper in Journal of Phycology. Elected foreign member of Norwegian Academy of Science for her pioneering work in phytoplankton phylogenetics. Her 1988 benchmark publication for first PCR primers for 18S gene opened the door for rRNA genes as biodiversity genes.

Marine Biological Association of the UK, The Laboratory, The Citadel
Plymouth, PL1 2PB, UK

Email: lkm@mba.ac.uk

NTBC

Gerardo Mengs

Gerardo Mengs graduated in Veterinary in 1992 and he took his PhD in 2007 in Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) (UCM). His main research field is the biotechnology applied to the decontamination. He has focused his research on the development of new molecular techniques applied to agricultural and environmental problems. He and other colleagues founded Natural Biotec in 2003. Natural Biotec SL is an SME company in the field of the design and development of biological systems for decontamination and reuse of water for farms and for decontamination / restoration of soils.
Since 1995 he has been collaborating with the UCM in Biotechnology research projects. His participation in projects as head researcher has been relational to the definition of gene and protein profiles of prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, as a methodology to study the impact of environmental pollutants and/or decontamination strategies/restoration and sewage composting. He also has developed projects related to animal by-products composting. He is author of several research papers and has assisted to congresses in different places of the world.

NATURAL BIOTEC SL
FPCM-Madrid

Email: gmengs@naturalbiotec.com

LGC

Jim Huggett

Trained as a geneticist Jim did his PhD studying mechanically regulated genes in bone metabolisms prior to working for seven years as a Senior Research Fellow at University College London investigating the diagnosis and biology of Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases in the developing world. For the past 5 years he has led the nucleic acid research in LGC's Molecular and Cell Biology Team where he investigates the measurement challenges associated with established and novel technologies for molecular analysis and diagnostics.

LGC Limited
Queens Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LY, UK

Email: Jim.Huggett@lgcgroup.com