Diethard Mattanovich is Professor of Microbial Biotechnology and Head of Department of Biotechnology and Food Science at BOKU University in Vienna. His research interests are centered on yeast biotechnology, with a strong focus on methylotrophic yeasts, their genetics and metabolism, and modes of engineering them to produce valuable goods in a sustainable way. Especially their ability to assimilate single carbon substrates like methanol, formic acid and CO₂ raises promises for circular production of food, feed, and materials. Diethard Mattanovich is a member of the International Commission on Yeast (ICY) which he has chaired from 2021-2024.

Iva Pichová is a biochemist at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research group focuses on the functional characterization and evolution of enzymes involved in fatty acid biosynthesis across diverse insect species and pathogenic Candida species. Through a combination of bioinformatic analysis, functional expression of enzymes in yeast, and the analysis of enzyme products by GC-MS, they have identified novel fatty acid desaturases (FADs) and reductases (FARs) that regulate the biosynthesis of fatty acid derivatives in these species. Employing AlphaFold and rational mutagenesis of FADs and FARs, the key structural motifs contributing to specificity of these enzymes were identified. These results provide an effective approach for engineering of enzymes with unique properties for biotechnological applications.

After receiving Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University, Japan, under the supervision of Prof. Mitsuhiro Yanagida, Prof. Saitoh worked as a research associate in Paul Russell's laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute, CA, USA, studying the cellular response to DNA-damaging stress using the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Since moving to Kurume University, Prof. Saitoh have been studying the molecular and genetic mechanisms by which fission yeast cells cope with nutrient starvation stress.

Gerhard Sandmann, retired professor, still affiliated to the Institute of Molecular Biosciences of Goethe University Frankfurt. His research is focused for over 40 years on the biosynthesis of carotenoids in different organisms including plants, bacteria and fungi. More than 300 publications resulted from these activities. The work covers the elucidation of pathways with their enzymes and the molecular genetics including functional genomics. The cloning of the carotenogenic genes involved laid the basis for the heterologous enzyme synthesis to study catalytic mechanisms and substrate/product specificity which enables pathway constructions and for the metabolic engineering of carotenoid production systems. During the last years, the biotechnological focus was on the red yeast Xanthophyllomces dendrorhous also known as Phaffia rhodozyma. This yeast was genetically engineered for high-yield production of different carotenoids.

Matthias Sipiczki is Professor of Microbial Genetics at the University of Debrecen. He founded the University's Department of Genetics and Applied Microbiology and was head of the department for more than 20 years. He was also Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology and Vice-Rector of the University. His research interests are mainly in yeast biology, genetics, molecular taxonomy and phylogenetics. His research has also focused on wine yeasts and the use of antagonistic yeasts in biological control.

Frank Uhlmann was born and grew up in Germany. He studied biochemistry and physiological chemistry at the University of Tübingen before joining Jerry Hurwitz's laboratory at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York for his PhD studies. Frank then moved to the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna to work as a postdoc with Kim Nasmyth. In 2000, he established a research laboratory at what was then the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. He has remained there ever since, while the institute became part of Cancer Research UK and now The Francis Crick Institute. His work on chromosome segregation was recognised with the EMBO Gold Medal in 2006.