Philip Marsh is Professor Emeritus (Oral Microbiology) at the School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, UK.  He has published over 250 research papers and review articles, and is co-author of a leading text book on oral microbiology, now in its sixth edition. 

He was the recipient of the ORCA-Rolex Award for Caries Research in 1991, the IADR Distinguished Science Award (Research in Dental Caries) in 1998, the Society for General Microbiology (UK) Colworth Prize Lecture Award for applied microbiology research in 2001, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Congress of Minimally Invasive Dentistry in 2008.

His research interests include dental biofilms and oral microbial ecology, especially the influence of environmental factors on the composition and activity of the oral microbiome. This interaction is fundamental to understand whether the relationship between the oral microbiome and the host will result in health (symbiosis) or disease (dysbiosis); these concepts were encapsulated in the ‘ecological plaque hypothesis’ which he proposed in the 1990s. He is interested in treatment approaches that can prevent disease while preserving the important beneficial functions of the resident oral microbiome.

William Wade is Emeritus Professor of Oral Microbiology within the Centre for Host-Microbiome Interactions, King’s College London and Adjunct Professor at the ADA Forsyth Institute, Cambridge, USA. His first degree was in Biological Sciences from the University of East Anglia, followed by a PhD in Microbiology at the University of Wales. He has held academic appointments at the Universities of Wales,Bristol and Queen Mary University of London. He has been a central figure in the development and application of methods for the characterisation of the oral microbiome in health and disease and is a curator of the Human Oral Microbiome Database (www.homd.org). He has particular interests in the cultivation of previously uncultivated bacteria and the development and evaluation of antimicrobials and pre- and pro- biotics for the prevention and treatment of oral diseases. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and obtained grant funding from UK Research Councils, the US National Institutes of Health and major charities including the Wellcome Trust. He has also worked closely with Industry on translational projects to develop new oral care products.

Mike obtained his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of London. He was a visiting Fogarty Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, USA (1980-85), where he worked on the characterization of anaerobic metabolism and electron flow in microbial communities. After returning to England, he worked at the Medical Research Council Dental Research Unit (1985-94) on risk factors for periodontal disease and led the MRC Microbial Molecular Pathogenesis Group (1994-2004), where he worked mainly on the biology of the periodontal bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis. During the period 2001-17 he worked at Queen Mary University of London as Head of the Department of Clinical Microbiology (2001-03), Dean for Research of the School of Medicine and Dentistry (2002-04), Director of the Blizard Institute (2003-13), Dean for Dentistry (2013-17) and Deputy Vice-Principal for Health (2012-17). He was appointed Executive Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences at King’s College London in 2017 and served as Senior Vice President (Academic) for King’s in 2021/22. He was awarded Honorary Fellowship in Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FDSRCS, 2008), Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci, 2009), Distinguished Scientist in Basic Periodontal Disease Research of the IADR in 2005 and Distinguished Scientist of the European Federation of Periodontology in 2017. Mike’s current research focusses on the role of the oral microbiome in host development, the maintenance of health and oral/systemic disease and virulence determinants of oral bacteria.

Prof. Wim Teughels received his dental degree in 2000 from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULeuven) in Belgium. In 2006, he earned the degree of specialist in periodontology and successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at the same university. In addition, he earned the “European Federation of Periodontology (EFP) certificate in Periodontology”. In 2007, he was named an assistant professor at the KULeuven Faculty of Medicine. His teaching responsibilities encompass a range of topics in the fields of Periodontology and Human Anatomy.

Currently, he is a full professor at KULeuven and the University hospitals Leuven, where he is the head of the Periodontology and Oral Microbiology research group. His research is centered on periodontology and oral microbiology, with an emphasis on bacterial adhesion, microbial interactions, antimicrobials, and probioticsThis has resulted in over 190 papers in international journals, 3 edited books and over >10 book chapters. He has received five national and three international awards and is frequently invited to give lectures on the topic of "probiotics" and “antimicrobials” both domestically and internationally. In 2012, Professor Teughels is appointed associate editor for both the Journal of Periodontal Research and the textbook "Carranza's Clinical Periodontology." He is the co-director of the EFP- post-graduate education committee, an advisor for the EAO Consensus Conference committee, and the Ambassador for the ITI University Campus program. He holds visiting professorships at Cukurova University (Turkey) and Malaya University (Malaysia).

Alex Mira completed his doctorate in microbiology at Oxford University (UK) and carried out post-doctoral research in the USA and Sweden. He returned to Spain with the Ramón y Cajal repatriation program in 2003 and initiated his own research group working on the genomics and metagenomics of oral bacteria. He was awarded the “Jaime Ferran” National Award for Research in Microbiology and the FIPSE National Award for Health Innovation, the latter for the discovery of S. dentisani and its development as a probiotic to promote oral health. He is currently the principal investigator of the Oral Microbiome Laboratory at the FISABIO Foundation in Spain, where he has applied metagenomics to the study of dental caries, periodontitis and halitosis. His current research lines include the study of oral bacteria involved in cardiovascular health and the links between oral microbiota and cancer.

 

E-mail: alex.mira@fisabio.es
Twitter: @mira_ale
http://centros.fisabio.san.gva.es/web/oral-microbiome-laboratory/inicio

Prof. dr. Bastiaan Krom (https://research.vu.nl/en/persons/bastiaan-krom) studied biology at the University of Groningen. After obtaining his PhD (molecular microbiology) at that same institute he specialized in fungal biology during his Postdoctoral fellowship at Georgetown University (Washington, DC, USA).

In 2004 he started working as researcher and assistant professor at the department of Biomedical Engineering, University Medical Center Groningen, where he focused on Candida albicans biofilm formation on medical devices. After moving to the Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (2011), he broadened the scope of research to the role of fungi in oral biology. Since 2023 he is full professor of Oral Microbiology at ACTA and is chairing the department of Preventive Dentistry. His current research focus is oral biogeography in the broadest sense.

www.ACTA.nl

Egija Zaura (https://research.vu.nl/en/persons/egija-zaura) is University Research Chair Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a full professor in Oral Microbial Ecology at the Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA). She has a degree in dentistry (Karolinska Institutet and Riga Stradins University) and a PhD in Preventive Dentistry (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands). Her clinical, chemical, microbiological and bioinformatical expertise allows linking and interpreting complex and heterogeneous information at various levels and applying an ecosystemic view to the oral cavity and beyond. In her research she links oral microbial ecology with the rest of the human body and looks holistically at the maintenance of health. She is the founder and leader of an interdisciplinary research priority area (RPA) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) focusing on Personal Microbiome Health (https://pmh-uva.nl) and the head of division involving departments of Pediatric Dentistry, Cariology, Oral Public Health, Preventive Dentistry and Orofacial Pain and Dysfunction at ACTA.