Cristina Andres-Lacueva is Full Professor and Principal Investigator at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Security within the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Science at the University of Barcelona (UB/María de Maeztu-AEI) and at CIBERFES (Frailty and Healthy Aging) from the Biomedical Research Networking Center (CIBER) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII). She leads an accredited research group focused on Biomarkers, Exposome, and Nutritional Metabolomics, pioneering innovative approaches to studying the exposome and applying metabolomics in nutrition research to advance Precision Nutrition and Medicine. She is a recipient of the ICREA Academia Award (2018 and 2023).

Cristina actively participates in several European consortia, including FoodBall, Maple, D-CogPlas, Digumet, Carb4-Health, and Hub-Platform from the Joint Programme Initiative “Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life,” as well as EIT Health/Horizon projects such as Cook2Health. At the national level, she leads scientific research funded by Marató TV3, ISCIII/FIS, and industrial partnerships within CDTI initiatives.

Her current research focuses on the Food4Brain and Food4HealthyAging studies from BBHI, as well as the Toledo Healthy Aging studies, aiming to advance Precision Nutrition in healthy aging through predictive models and nutritional strategies targeting disability and frailty.

Prof. Andres-Lacueva collaborates with the Division of Coordination and Evaluation of the Spanish State Research Agency (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities). She has also been a member of the Steering Committee advising the European Commission on the foresight study “Tomorrow’s Healthy Society: Exploring Research Priorities for Foods and Diet.” In addition, she contributed as an expert to the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in the development of dietary recommendations for older European populations.

She coordinates the Master’s Program in Innovation and Food Development at the University of Barcelona and has been recognized as a Highly Cited Scientist by Clarivate (2021, 2022). She is also ranked among the top 2% of the world’s most influential scientists according to the 2024 Stanford/Elsevier ranking. Prof. Andres-Lacueva has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and has an H-index of 80 (Web of Science).

ORCID: 0000-0002-8494-4978
ResearcherID: J-3377-2012

Continuous lifelong learning: IESE – Women and Leadership; UB – Master’s Degree in Personal Development and Leadership; EIT Women Health

www.nutrimetabolomics.com
Instagram: @Nutrimetabolom

Miriam holds a PhD in Food Science and Nutrition (2015) from the University of Barcelona (UB). She studied Chemistry (2007), a master’s degree in Analytical Chemistry (2008) and a master’s degree in Food Research, Development and Innovation (2011) at the University of Barcelona. Her research experience focuses on the development and validation of analytical methods in food and biological samples and their subsequent analysis and data processing. Currently, Miriam is the Lab Manager of the group and is involved in several national and international projects as coordinator of the metabolomic analysis.

Dr. Tomás Meroño is a Lecturer Professor at the Department of Nutrition, Food Sciences, and Gastronomy of the University of Barcelona (One approved research six-year period). His research aims to describe the relationships between diet, gut microbiota, inflammation, and healthy aging. In the last 3 years, Dr. Meroño led 10 articles aiming to describe the relationship between diet, gut microbiota, and healthy aging through nutritional epidemiology and nutrimetabolomics studies. Specially he was leader of a paper showing a nutrigenetic interaction between fibre consumption and APOE gene variants for cognitive decline risk (Age & Ageing, 2023, several news outlets published). Currently, Dr. Meroño is PI from a research project funded by the “Agencia Estatal de Investigación, MICINN” for studying the role of intestinal permeability and bacterial translocation in brain health -BTsBRAIN-PID2021-128542OA-I00. Part of this project involved the improvement of the methodology to evaluate circulating LPS subtypes based on the chain length of 3-hydroxy fatty acids present in lipid A. Moreover, he coined the term “good” LPS for LPS coming from Gram-negative gut commensals of a healthy gut microbiome in his recently published seminal paper (doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1588129). BTsBrain publications are now written showing the association between “good” LPS and brain health measurements (2 poster presentations). In addition, TM participated in two industry-funded research projects in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (PI. Enrique Soriano): i) funded by Roche Farma S.A., showing no impact of tocilizumab treatment on lipid parameters, published in 2021; and the other ii) funded by Pfizer S.A, manuscript published in 2025. Last, TM is actively collaborating in several EU competitive projects funded by the JPI-HDHL regarding the health effects of diet: i) Tailored Carbohydrate Quality for Personalized Weight Management and Metabolic Health (AC19/0011), ii) Diet and microbiome based metabotypes to adapt intervention strategies for health improvement, DIGUMET (PCIN-2017-076), and iii) Knowledge Platform on Food, Diet, Intestinal Microbiomics and Human Health (AC19/00096). Last, he is part of the Biomedical Research Network Center in Fragility and Healthy Ageing CIBERFES (CB16/10/0026).

Overall, Dr. Meroño co-authored 77 publications indexed in the JCR, most of them published in journals in the first quartile of his specialty (H index: 16, citations: 816, WOS). During the period 11/2023-04/2024 he enjoyed paternity leave. The international collaborations of Dr. Meroño include Dr. Antonio Cherubini (IRCCS-INRCA, Italy), Dr. Simone Guglielmetti (University of Milan, Italy), Dr. Anatol Kontush (INSERM, France), Dr. Fernando Brites (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Dr. Rikard Landberg (UChalmers, Sweden). In particular, during the doctorate, TM carried out a 3-month research stay in the laboratory of Dr. Anatol Kontush (INSERM UMR ICAN 1166) which led to four joint publications in lipidomics.

TM is currently co-director of three PhD Students at the University of Barcelona. TM is regular reviewer of research projects in Food and Agricultural Area-Foods subarea of the Spanish Agency of Research (since 2024), for the Applied Medical Research and Development projects presented to Czech Health Research Council (AZVCR) and the Czech Science Foundation (since 2017) and is Reviewer Editor of Frontiers in Immnunology.

In January 2023, she was awarded a Ramón y Cajal contract (RYC2021-034349) and joined the University of Barcelona, Department of Nutrition, Food Sciences and Gastronomy. She is part of the 2021 SGR 00687 research group, INSA-UB, and CIBERFES, and she is the principal investigator of a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2022-141067OA-I00).

She currently also leads the development of an innovative digital resource focused on the critical evaluation of nutritional content on social media, incorporating a citizen science approach, a gender perspective, and evidence-based methodology.

She studied Chemistry at the University of the Philippines Los Baños in 2011 and worked as a QC analyst for the food and pharmaceutical industries before obtaining a scholarship under the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Quality in Analytical Laboratories in 2019.

Her master’s thesis focused on the determination of the authenticity of Ginkgo biloba raw materials and extracts using four analytical techniques (LC-HRMS, ICP-MS, NMR, and GC-MS) combined with chemometric methods.

Recently, she was awarded an FPI grant to work on her PhD thesis under the FOOD4BRAIN project, entitled “Study of Dietary Pattern-based Metabotypes associated with Brain Health.”

In her free time, she enjoys reading novels and watching movies. She also loves hiking and travelling to different places.

Rafael holds a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics (2021) and is an ISAK Level 2 anthropometrist. He has a diploma in High-Performance Nutrition, a specialization in Clinical and Sports Vegetarian Nutrition, and a Master’s in Human Microbiota. Additionally, he completed a Master’s in Nutrition and Metabolism, specializing in research at the University of Barcelona. During his master’s studies, his research focused on the impact of maternal diet quality during pregnancy and lactation on the offspring’s metabolome. In 2023, Rafael joined the “Nutritional and Food Biomarkers & Metabolomics” group as a PhD student with an FPI-María de Maeztu fellowship to work on the BTs-Brain project. Furthermore, Rafael is also a professional pianist, collaborating in various projects in Barcelona in his free time.

Andrea holds a degree in Biochemistry (2018) and an MSc in New Food Development (2019), both from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). During her master’s studies, her research focused on the enzymatic production of omega-3-enriched bioactive lipids from microalgae oil. She later completed a fellowship at TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), where she worked with in vitro experimental platforms for microbiome studies in relation to target groups following different types of diets.

Andrea joined the “Biomarkers and Nutritional & Food Metabolomics” research group in 2021 as a PhD student with a predoctoral FPU scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Universities. Her research focuses on the analysis of metabotypes and response biomarkers to elucidate the role of dietary carbohydrate quality in personalized weight management and cardiometabolic health.

Born in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. He studied a bachelor’s in clinical chemistry and a master’s degree in life sciences. With training in the clinical and biomedical laboratories, his main research line of interest is human and microbial metabolism. Right now, he’s doing research on the relationship between lifestyle, metabolism and brain health.

Research statement:
I am developing my thesis focused on the study of tryptophan metabolic pathways in the diet–microbiota–gut-brain axis interaction and their impact on brain health. My research aims to understand how diet modulates tryptophan metabolism and its relationship with exposome biomarkers and cognitive function, integrating clinical and observational studies as well as metabolomic analyses. 

Short biography:
I studied Nutrition and Dietetics, obtaining a degree as a nutritionist, and later received an ANID scholarship to complete a Master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Chile. I carried out my master’s thesis through a cohort study analyzing alcohol consumption and the effects of different types of alcoholic beverages on health. I have been a lecturer in the Department of Nutrition at the University of Chile since 2013, where I teach in the field of public nutrition. I also participate in university outreach activities and research. 

She studied Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. She worked as a quality control analyst in a Guatemalan laboratory, analyzing pharmaceutical products, food, and cosmetics, as well as contributing to quality management processes. She was later awarded a scholarship to pursue the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Quality in Analytical Laboratories, studying at the Gdańsk University of Technology (Poland) and the University of Barcelona (Spain). Her master’s thesis focused on the study of solute–solvent interactions using chromatographic columns with plasma proteins. She currently holds an FPI predoctoral contract (PREP2023-001809), funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the ESF+, to carry out her PhD within the Food4HealthyAging project, using targeted quantitative metabolomics, clinical markers, and exposome methodologies.

Her research focuses on the identification of plasma and microbiota-related metabolomic biomarkers. The main objective is to predict the risk of frailty and to guide personalized nutritional strategies aimed at preventing or delaying disability in older adults.

To achieve this, she works with data from the Toledo Study for Healthy Aging. Her work includes a comprehensive analysis of the metabolomic footprint in plasma samples, as well as the study of complex interactions between diet, microbiota, the environmental exposome, and gut–brain axis biomarkers.

Interdisciplinary professional with a solid background in nutrition, health sciences, and innovation. Experienced in managing clinical trials, expanded access programs, real world data studies, coordinating EU-funded research projects, and leading science communication initiatives for women. Passionate about translating research into impact through strategic collaborations in the food, pharmaceutical and consumer health industry.

Andrea holds a PhD in Food Science & Nutrition, for which she was awarded the Extraordinary PhD Award from the University of Barcelona. She majored in Nutrition & Wellbeing at Tecnológico de Monterrey and also holds a Master’s Degree in Nutrition & Metabolism, as well as another in Research & Pharmaceutical Sciences, both from the University of Barcelona.

Purpose- and people-driven, with an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset, she has obtained certifications in Management, Business Sustainability, and Entrepreneurship from Harvard Business School Online to further expand her impact.

She is a clinical laboratory technician trained at the Institut Miquel Martí i Pol in Cornellà de Llobregat. She worked at the veterinary diagnostics company IDEXX for four months. In her free time, she enjoys dancing and reading, and she is also studying French.

He works at the interface between biostatistics and bioinformatics. His research focuses on the development and application of methods for the integrative analysis of multimodal and omics data, particularly in the fields of nutrition, metabolomics, and translational medicine. He has participated in numerous national and international projects, including European initiatives such as EOSC-Life, IMPaCT, and DIGUMET, and currently leads a project on ontology-driven approaches for integrating biological knowledge into data analysis. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and has contributed to the development of methodological and computational tools, including R/Bioconductor packages.

Alongside his research, he has held leadership roles in data science infrastructures (VHIR) and is the coordinator of the UOC-UB interuniversity master’s programme in Bioinformatics and Biostatistics. His teaching activity includes courses such as Advanced Statistical Inference (MESIO) and Omics Data Analysis (UOC-UB).

Esteban Vegas Lozano is a tenured professor in the Statistics section of the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics within the Faculty of Biology at the University of Barcelona.

His teaching focuses on Bioinformatics, Statistics, and Deep Learning for undergraduate and master’s programs in Biology and related fields.

He is also a member of the Statistics and Bioinformatics research group and of the Consolidated Teaching Innovation Group Statmedia for University Mathematics and Statistics.

His research focuses on the analysis of biomedical and omics data, as well as the development of new methodologies for data analysis

Research interests: Linear models, Multivariate Analysis Techniques.

Graduated in Mathematics (from the University of Barcelona, 1992) and PhD in Mathematics (from the University of Barcelona, 2002), she completed her Doctoral Thesis in the Department of Statistics of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona (Hypothesis Test as a Selection of Models. A Geometric Approach). She is currently a Full Professor of the University of the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics (Statistics Section) of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona. He teaches and has taught the subjects of Mathematics, Statistics and Design of Experiments and Data Analysis in the degrees of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Inference, and Introduction to Probability in the degree of Statistics (UB-UPC) and Experimental Design in the Master of Development and Food Innovation of the Faculty of Pharmacy. She is a member of several projects of Teaching Innovation in Statistics and develops her research activity in different fields, participating as a researcher in Projects and Research Groups.

Antonio Miñarro holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Barcelona (UB). He is an Associate Professor in the area of Statistics and Operations Research at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics at UB. His research focuses on the analysis of multidimensional data, mainly in the fields of biology and health sciences. Recently, his work has focused on methods for integrating multi-omics and clinical data to develop an integrative approach that can more effectively address disease stratification and biomarker discovery.

He teaches Statistics courses in several undergraduate and master’s programs at the Faculty of Biology and in the Master’s Degree in Statistics and Operations Research (MESIO UB-UPC).

He completed a BSc in Biotechnology at the University of Salamanca (USAL), where he developed a strong interest in Computational Biology. He subsequently obtained an MSc in Bioinformatics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and pursued a PhD at the Centre for Genomic Regulation and Pompeu Fabra University (CRG-UPF), focusing on the development of statistical methods to study the genetic determinants of alternative splicing, under the supervision of Drs. Roderic Guigó and Miquel Calvo. His PhD work contributed to the creation of the largest catalog of splicing regulatory variation across human tissues to date, within the framework of the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project.

In late 2021, he joined the University of Barcelona (UB) as an Assistant Professor, where he expanded these methodologies to the analysis of other multidimensional phenotypes, including neuroimaging and wearable device-derived endophenotypes in the context of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders. In early 2025, he obtained a tenured Associate Professor position and established his own research group in Statistical Genetics. His current research focuses on the development of novel statistical methods for the analysis of multidimensional molecular signatures and regulatory networks in single cells. He is also a member of the developmental GTEx (dGTEx) analysis team.

Throughout his research career, he has co-authored 34 peer-reviewed journal articles and contributed to 12 research projects funded by national and international institutions. He has presented his work at 19 international conferences and frequently serves as a reviewer for leading journals, including Nature Genetics and Bioinformatics. In addition, he has developed open-source software widely used by the scientific community.

Alongside his research, he is committed to teaching and mentoring. His teaching experience exceeds 1,500 hours at the university level, covering subjects in Bioinformatics, Statistics, and Mathematics. He is also actively involved in teaching innovation and outreach activities and currently supervises two PhD students.

Dr. María Teresa Pay holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Murcia (2006) and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (2011), with European mention and extraordinary doctoral award. She is specialized in atmospheric chemistry modeling and environmental data analysis and contributed to the development of CALIOPE, the first air quality prediction system in Spain. 

For 15 years (2006–2021), she conducted research at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), coordinating the evaluation of air quality models and participating in studies supporting air pollution mitigation policies. She completed international stays at École Polytechnique (France) and at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), specializing in chemical transport models and source attribution techniques for pollution. 

Since 2021, she has been a Professor of Statistics at the University of Barcelona, where she researches environmental statistics, integrating advanced statistical methods and environmental data to understand the origin of pollution and its impact on human health and climate. Between 2022 and 2024, she was a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, leading a project on machine learning applied to the study of the origin and impacts of air pollution. 

She has participated in 25 national and international research projects (9 as principal investigator), has been PI of the PAISA project funded by MINECO, and has collaborated as a consultant for public administrations in air quality assessment. She is co-author of 30 scientific articles, 4 book chapters, and over 60 conference contributions. She was a Marie Curie fellow (2013–2016) and has supervised a doctoral thesis. 

He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Pharmacy (2010) at the University of Barcelona, later completing a Master’s Degree and a PhD in Bioinformatics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Throughout his career, he has specialized in statistical modeling, bioinformatics, and OMICS analyses, contributing to diverse projects in molecular modeling, clinical and epidemiological research, and large-scale nutritional studies. This multidisciplinary background has strengthened his expertise in advanced analytical methods and high-performance computing.

Recently, as a tenure-track lecturer at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics (University of Barcelona), he joined the “Biomarkers, Exposome, and Nutritional & Food Metabolomics Research Group,” where he contributes to the development and application of statistical and computational tools for metabolomic data analysis, supporting the identification of nutritional biomarkers and their implications for human health.