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Alexandra Muñoz Bonilla is a Scientific Researcher and director of the ICTP-CSIC. She has carried out research stays in prestigious international centers and has over 20 years of experience Polymer Chemistry and Material science. Her research lies at the precision synthesis of functional polymers with particular emphasis in the development of bioactive and bioresponsive polymers, glycopolymers for biomolecular recognition, antimicrobial polymers and biohybrid materials. Precision polymer synthesis includes combination of controlled polymerization techniques, orthogonal click chemistry methodologies, efficient and environmentally friendly synthetic approaches and the use of biomimetic chemistry. Currently, her main research lines are the development of antimicrobial materials with high activity against a broad spectrum of microorganisms and biobased and biodegradable polymeric systems. She is author of 3 patents and 134 published articles, h-index: 31, 9 book chapters and editor of two books. She has leader/participated in 43 projects from competitive funding and 9 research contracts with industry.

Amparo López Rubio is a Researcher and currently the director of the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (IATA), which belongs to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). She obtained her Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology in 2006 from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV, Spain). After various pre- and postdoctoral stays in prestigious scientific institutions where she expanded her knowledge of advanced material characterization techniques, she returned to IATA where she initiated different lines of research, pioneering the use of X-ray and neutron scattering techniques to understand the structure of foods and correlate it with functionality, as well as the use of nanotechnologies in the food area. She has published over 180 scientific articles in indexed journals, holds 8 patents (3 of them in exploitation), and numerous book chapters and conference communications, with significant contributions in the area of sustainable materials for food packaging.

Dr. Ana Beloqui is a multidisciplinary researcher whose work crosses the boundaries between the fields of chemistry, enzymology, nanotechnology, and applied polymer chemistry. Currently, she heads her research group, PolyZymes Lab, at POLYMAT Institute and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). She has implemented an innovative research line based on the rational combination of proteins and polymers for assembling superior functional materials. Her main motivation is to improve the stability of functional proteins to be used in advanced applications. Her work has been recognized with the "Best Young Group Leader" award (2021) by the Group of Chemical Biology of the RSEQ (Spanish Royal Chemical Society) and the prestigious BBVA-Leonardo Fellowship for Young Researchers (2021) awarded by the BBVA foundation.

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Marcelo Calderón is an Ikerbasque professor and leader of the Responsive Therapeutic Polymers group at the Basque Center for Macromolecular Design and Engineering, POLYMAT, located in San Sebastián, Spain. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2007 from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, under the supervision of Professor Miriam Strumia. Subsequently, in 2007, he joined Professor Rainer Haag's group at the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) for his postdoctoral research, focusing on the synthesis of polymer-drug conjugates with theranostic applications. During the period 2010-2018, he established his research group at FUB, focusing on the development of hybrid polymeric nanoparticles responsive to magnetic, thermal, and light stimuli. Since 2019, at POLYMAT, his group has concentrated its efforts on the synthesis of polymeric materials that have shown success in various applications, such as controlled topical drug administration and tumor ablation through hyperthermia.

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Dr. Juan Lopez Valentin obtained his PhD in Chemistry (2005) from the Complutense University of Madrid, thanks to the work on rubber reinforcement developed in the Elastomers Group of the Institute of Polymer Science and Technology (CSIC). He was a postdoctoral researcher in the NMR group at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), where he worked on the application of advanced time-domain NMR experiments to rubber science. Since 2017, he has been a tenured scientist and head of the Elastomers Group in Madrid and received the Sparks-Thomas Award from the ACS, Rubber Division in 2017. His main research area is focused on the development and characterisation of more sustainable rubber compounds for advanced applications.

Carlos Sánchez-Somolinos, PhD in Physics from the University of Zaragoza, Spain, completed a postdoc at Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, working on photopolymers for display applications. Currently, he is a Research Scientist at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), where he heads the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory. His expertise and current scientific objectives are focused on developing materials and their processing through advanced manufacturing techniques in the pursuit of surfaces or functional systems of interest in optics, biomedicine, and soft robotics. In this last field, he has developed innovative material preparation methodologies, among which stands out the 4D printing of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), a pioneering technique that introduces smart character into 3D-printed structures, programming the material's response to external stimuli through additive manufacturing. Related to this development, he has been the coordinator of the H2020-FET-OPEN project PRIME, and the Network of Excellence H2020-MSCA-ITN STORM-BOTS in LCE soft robotics.

Graduated from the Institute of Polymer Science and Technology of CSIC (Spain) and trained at Imperial College London (UK, as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow) and POLYMAT (Spain, Ramon y Cajal Fellow), Jaime Martín is an Oportunius Research Professor at University of La Coruña (Spain). He leads the Group of Functional Polymer Materials (https://www.jaimemartinlab.com), which is devoted to understanding the solid-state microstructure of semiconducting polymers and how this is connected with the operation of organic electronic devices (e.g., organic solar cells and organic filed effect transistors. His scientific outcomes have resulted in more than 80 papers (Adv. Mater., Adv. Funct. Mater., Adv. Energy. Mater., Joule, etc.), including an invited paper for the Rising Star series of Advanced Materials 2021 and the recipient of the Mater. Horizons Outstanding Paper Award of 2022. During his career as independent researcher Jaime has secured >3,000,000 € as PI in competitive calls, including an ERC-CoG (PARACRYST, 2,000,000 €).