Dr. Mónica Cala is the Head of the Metabolomics Core Facility – MetCore at Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia, and a founding member of the Latin American Metabolic Profiling Society – LAMPS. She received her B.Sc and MSc. in Chemistry from the Universidad Industrial de Santander in Colombia, and in 2017 she obtained her Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences from the Universidad de Los Andes. Between 2006 and 2011, she contributed in the research for secondary metabolites with antioxidant properties in Colombian aromatic plants using GC-MS, LC-MS, and CE-MS. Since 2012, she has applied high-resolution mass spectrometry-based non-targeted metabolomics and lipidomics in different research areas, including biomedical application in breast cancer. In 2015, she was awarded the Banco Iberoamericano, Jóvenes Profesores Investigadores 2015 grant to conduct a research stance in the Centre of Metabolomics and Bioanalysis (CEMBIO) led by Prof. Coral Barbas at CEU-San Pablo University, Spain. During her stay in Spain, she applied a multiplatform metabolomics approach to unveil metabolic alteration in cachectic patients aiming to shed light on its pathophysiology. In 2019, she established the Metabolomics Core Facility – MetCore under the Vice presidency of Research at Uniandes; the first Metabolomics Center in Colombia.  Since then, she has participated in promoting awareness of metabolomics in Latin America. At MetCore, she leads research projects applying non-targeted and targeted metabolomics in health, nutrition, and agriculture. MetCore aims to provide access to cutting-edge technology implemented in mass spectrometry-based metabolomics using GC-MS, CE-MS, and UHPLC-MS, to conduct innovative and multidisciplinary research projects and provide metabolomic services in Colombia and the Latin American region.

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Dr. Eric Parker is an Astrochemist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He received a doctoral degree in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His areas of interest include analytical chemistry, astrochemistry, prebiotic chemistry, astrobiology, and origins of life. 

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Alan C. Pilon is a chemist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry, São Paulo State University (IQ-UNESP-CAr). In 2015, he obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and Natural Product from IQ-UNESP. His research journey took him abroad as a visiting researcher in Lloyd Sumer's lab at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, USA (2013-2014), focusing on plant metabolomics. He also spent time at Leiden University (2013) alongside Prof. Young Hae Choi, employing computational tools in plant metabolomics. Post-Ph.D., Alan contributed to the development of the Natural Products database (NuBBEDB) at IQ-UNESP (2015-2016) with Prof. Vanderlan da Silva Bolzani. His postdoctoral research at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, under the supervision of Prof. Norberto Peporine Lopes at the University of São Paulo (FCFRP-USP), explored Ecometabolomics in both degraded and preserved areas of the Atlantic Forest (2016-2020). Further enhancing his international experience, he was a visiting researcher at Imperial College London, Ascot, England (2019- 2020), in Jon Lloyd's group, studying the evolution of secondary metabolism in angiosperms. Back in Brazil, his postdoctoral work at UNB/FCFRP-USP (2020-2022) focused on metabolomic and larvicidal studies of Atlantic Forest species against Aedes aegypti. Additionally, Alan contributed to the startup Lychnoflora, managing project workflows and process mapping. Currently, he boasts 37 publications, 3 editorials, 5 book chapters, and 10 awards, notably the Young Investigator in Plant Metabolomics at the International Congress of the Metabolomics Society in Washington, USA, 2012. His work emphasizes the chemistry of natural products from Brazilian biodiversity, focusing on ecometabolomics, analytical and computational tool development for compound elucidation, mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, chemical ecology, and natural product libraries. He volunteered as a scientific disseminator (JP-Conecta and SBQ Bulletin) for the Young Researchers of the Brazilian Chemical Society (JP-SBQ 2019-2022) and co-founded the "Rede Metabolômica" community, an international group for discussion, sharing, and mobilization in Metabolomics.

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Julia Kuligowski is a Principal Investigator at the Neonatal Research Group at the Health Research Institute La Fe in Valencia (Spain). Her research interests focus on the detection of molecular biomarkers in biofluids of newborns with different pathologies, including hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and severe hypoxia secondary to persistent pulmonary hypertension. She has been working in the area of development and validation of oxidative/nitrosative stress biomarkers and tested their applicability for elucidating the biochemical and clinical effects of hypo- and hyperoxia and their relevance for the development of oxidative-stress related pathologies in preterm infants. More recently, she got involved in the development of personalized nutrition approaches for the preterm infant. She has been evaluating the impact of maternal diet on the composition of human milk and how the different compounds present in milk affect growth, health, and development of the preterm infant and she has been working on the characterization of human milk extracellular vesicles, with special emphasis on their lipidic make-up, and how the properties of those vesicles could be exploited for disease prevention or treatment of preterm infants. She is actively participating in different scientific societies and international working groups including the  Metabolomics Quality Assurance and Quality Control Consortium (since 2019), the International Society for Extacellular Vesicles (ISEV) – Milk Task Force, Rigor and Standardization Subcommittee (since 2022), the Metabolomics Society (EEUU) – Lipidomics Task Group (since 2023) and International Organizing Committee (Metabolomics 2019 and 2022), and she acts as Short Term Scientific Mission Coordinator of the COST action EpiLipidNet (2021-2024). Results of her work have resulted in over 140 publications in peer-reviewed, scientific journals and she participated in dissemination and public outreach activities to promote breastfeeding and natural lactation as well as interactive science workshops for kids.

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El Lic. Carlos E. Alli es actualmente Director del Laboratorio Vegetal dependiente de la Dirección General de Laboratorios y Control Técnico del SENASA; docente en el Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Analítica y Química-Física (Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales -UBA) y se encuentra a cargo de la Secretaría Técnica del Comité Codex de Residuos de Medicamentos Veterinarios en Alimentos (CCRVDF). Es contraparte en proyectos de cooperación regional con la Agencia Internacional de Energía Atómica (ARCAL-IAEA) para la “Mejora de las capacidades regionales de análisis y los programas de vigilancia de residuos y contaminantes en los alimentos mediante técnicas nucleares / isotópicas y complementarias para hacer frente a nuevos desafíos relacionados con la inocuidad de los alimentos”. Posee una amplia experiencia en el análisis de residuos químicos en alimentos mediante técnicas cromatográficas acoplada a espectrometría de masas, en sistemas de gestión de calidad y auditor en la Norma ISO/IEC 17025. Fue miembro del grupo Ad Hoc de Fármacos Veterinarios de la Fundación para la Promoción de la Sanidad Animal y la Seguridad Alimentaria (PROSAIA) desde Noviembre 2009 hasta Diciembre 2015. El grupo trabajó en la actualización, formulación y redacción de guías relacionadas al registro y control de los productos veterinarios (residuos de medicamentos veterinarios, biodisponibilidad, bioequivalencia, seguridad, estudios de depleción, entre otras); algunas de estas guías están aprobadas actualmente por el Comité de las Américas de Medicamentos Veterinarios (CAMEVET).

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