Plenary Lectures

Prof. Giovanni Appendino
Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Piemonte Orientale, Faculty of Pharmacy, Italy.
His research activity takes inspiration from natural products to solve problems  in organic chemistry (new synthetic methodologies), cell biology (novel mechanisms of activity),  and medicine (new drug leads), secondary metabolites (identification of nutraceutical agents from local food plants).
Prof. Appendino has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and 10 book chapters on the  chemistry and bioactivity of natural products, and has given lectures at prestigious European and  American institutions.
Editor in Chief of the Journal Fitoterapia and member of the Advisory Board of European  Journal of Organic Chemistry, Planta Medica, Journal of Natural Products.

Prof. Francisco A. Tomás Barberán
Research Professor of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in the CEBAS Institute Murcia, Spain.
His main research activity has aimed to understanding the role of plant phenolic secondary metabolites in food quality and their health promoting properties.
He is co-author of more than 200 scientific reports published in scientific journals and responsible for more than 80 research projects and contracts with food and pharmaceutical industries. He has produced a number of patents of which three have been licensed to companies.
Editor of the Journal of the Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Prof. Giovanni Dugo
Full Professor of Food Chemistry at the University of Messina, Faculty of Pharmacy, Italy.
Coordinator of the Food Chemistry Group of the Italian Chemistry Society (SCI).
His research activity is directed towards the development of innovative methods and to the study of food matrices by using innovative methodologies such as: multidimensional liquid chromatography (comprehensive LC); multidimensional gas chromatography (MDGC and comprehensive GC); ultrafast-GC and ultrafast-GC/MS; on-line SPME-GC/MS; micro-HPLC and micro-HPLC/API/MS; multidimensional HPLC and micro-HPLC; superheated HPLC; LC x GC.
He is co-author of more than 300 national and international papers and  several scientific book and encyclopaedia chapters.
Member of the Scientific Committee of Rivista Italiana di Scienza dell'Alimentazione, member of the Board of Journal Essential Oil Research.

Prof. Claudio Franceschi
Full Professor of Immunology  at the University of Bologna, Faculty of Medicine, Italy.
From July 1996 to 31/12/2005: Scientific Director of the Italian National Research Centre on Aging (INRCA), of the Italian Ministry of Health. Founder and former Managing Editor (together with Dr. J. Vijg, Dr. T. Sugimura and Dr. R. Setlow) of "DNAging - Genetic Instability and Aging", new section of "Mutation Research".
His research activity is pioneering the field of genetics in extreme longevity by introducing the experimental model of centenarian individuals, the best living example of "successful aging". The main lines of research regard the phenomena of aging and longevity, studied from different point of view.
He is co-author of more than 200 scientific reports published in scientific journals
Associate Editor of Aging, Clinical and Experimental Research.

Prof. Francesco Gasparrini
Full Professor of Organic Chemitry at the University La Sapienza of Roma, Faculty of Pharmacy, Italy.
His research activity is directed towards the rational design, realization and  investigation of improved functional molecules and materials endowed with  molecular recognition abilities, integrating advanced functional materials and chromatography-mass  spectrometry to examine protein-ligand interactions
He is co-author of more than 189 scientific reports published in scientific journals and responsible for more than 15 international patents among them three new chiral stationary phases: DACH-DNB CSP (Regis, USA), Chirobiotig-TAG and P-CAP (ASTEC, USA; Sigma Aldrich, USA).

Prof. Luisa Mannina
Professor of Food Chemitry at the University La Sapienza of Roma, Faculty of Pharmacy, Italy. 
Her research interests include NMR-metabolic methodology in the study of Food complex matrices and foodstuff techniques.
She is co-author of more than 120 scientific reports published in scientific journals.

Prof. Rosangela Marchelli
Full Professor of Organic Chemitry at the University of Parma, Faculty of Agronomy, Italy.
Expert NDA Panel at European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Prof. Luigi Mondello
Full Professor of Analytical Chemistry at University of Messina, Faculty of Pharmacy, Italy.
Member of the Central Technical Committee of the National System for the Accreditation of the Laboratory (ACCREDIA).
His research interests include Chromatography techniques (HRGC, HPLC, HRGC/MS, HPLC/MS, OPLC) and the development of coupled techniques such as LC-GC-MS, GC-GC, GCxGC, LCxLC, LCxGC and their applications in the study of natural complex matrices.
He is the author of 200 Scientific papers, 29 book chapters, 2 reviews, co-editor of a book on Multidimensional Chromatography (John Wiley & Sons),
Editor in Chief of Journal Essential Oil Research, Editor of Journal of Separation Science.

Brig. Gen. Dr. Cosimo Piccinno
The Commander of the Carabinieri Headquarters for Healthcare NAS (Anti Fraud Squad), Carabinieri Military Police (IT).

Prof. Daniele Piomelli
Full  Professor of  Pharmacology, University of California, School of Medicine, Irvine, USA.
Director of the UCI Department of Pharmacology NIDA Training Grant and the Center for Drug Discovery.
Dr. Piomelli has a long-standing interest in neuropharmacology, an area in which he has made three contributions. First, he established the role of arachidonic acid as an intracellular second messenger and revealed the molecular mechanisms by which this compound regulates neural activity. Second, he elucidated the pathways involved in the formation and deactivation of brain cannabis-like substances. Last, he discovered the role of the natural lipids oleoylethanolamide (OEA) and palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) in the control of satiety and energy balance, and identified the cellular receptor for these compounds.
Dr. Piomelli is an author in more than 150 papers in journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Medicine and Nature Neuroscience, more than 15 patents and three full-length books.

Prof. Pier Giorgio Righetti
Full Professor of Biochemistry, Department of Chemistry, Materials & Chemical Engineering, Polytechnic of Milano, Italy,
Current Research Interests: Proteomics, Allergen discovery in food stuff, Biomarker discovery, Cancer research, Combinatorial peptide ligand libraries, Red blood cell pathologies.
Awards: 2006, CaSSS Award, S. Francisco, USA; 2008: Cs. Horvath Award, Yale Univ., USA.; 2009: Iranian Proteomic Society Award, Tehran.
Editorial Board member of Electrophoresis, J. Chromatography, J. Capillary Electrophoresis, BioTechniques, Proteomics, Proteomics Clinical Applications. Associate Editor of the Journal of Proteomics.

Prof. Bruno Trimarco
Full Professor of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Federico II University, Naples, Italy.
Director of Centro per la Diagnosi e Cura dell'Ipertensione Arteriosa, Naples, Italy.
Current Research Interests: nutraceuticals for treatment of high blood pressure and to investigate whether addition of nutraceuticals to lifestyle management including diet counseling improves lipid profile and reduces cardiovascular risk and prevalence of metabolic syndrome.
He is an author in more than 550 papers in international journals and  several scientific book and encyclopaedia chapters.