Professor Buu Chi BUI is currently Chairman of the Council for Professor Promotion in Agriculture and Forestry as well as a leading scientist on Rice Genetics and Breeding in Viet Nam. Dr. Buu Chi BUI was born in a floating rice region of Dong Thap Province, so he had a passion for studying agriculture and rice since childhood. Dr. BUI got a Ph.D degree in 1987. His massive Ph.D work focused on both fields, which are Plant Breeding and the initial study of Cytogenetics and Quantitative genetics. After graduating, he came to work as a Postdoc Fellow in Biotechnology Center, Texas A&M University, USA. From 2002, he went back home and contributed to the development of rice farming in the Mekong Delta, Viet Nam. He became a full professor since 2004. Professor BUI was also one of the first people to lay the foundation for the establishment of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute (Mekong Delta). He took turns to hold the position of Deputy Director and Director of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute. His current research interests are rice breeding, molecular breeding, and quantitative genetics. He published a total of 310 research papers in ISI, Scopus, and ISSN international journals. With significant contributions to agricultural science, in 2000, the project "Rice breeding and improvement of rice intensive farming techniques in the Mekong Delta," which he co-authored, was honored to be awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize by the Government. Followed this success, Prof. Bui was honored to be awarded the Senadhira award by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) for outstanding research in developing the diversification of rice varieties in Vietnam. Professor BUI is also well-known in Vietnamese scientist networks as one of the two scientists awarded the Vietnam Talent Award in 2010, one of the prestigious awards honoring the talents of the country in the field of natural sciences. He has trained many generations of scientists, researchers, agricultural engineers for the Vietnam agriculture field.

Professor Hiroaki FUNAHASHI currently is in the Dean and Professor of the Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science, as well as a professor of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Center, at Okayama University, Japan. Professor Hiroaki FUNAHASHI was educated at the Department of Animal Science, Okayama University of Japan, and then awarded a doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in 1990. From 1991 to 1996, he was contributed to research at Department of Animal Science of University of Missouri-Columbia, as a postdoc and research assistant professor under Prof. Billy N. Day. In 1996, he was back to his mother university, Okayama University, as an associate professor of Animal Science. He has been promoted to a full professor since 2012. His major is Animal Reproductive Biotechnology. For long time, he has studied on in-vitro embryo production in cattle and pig, as well as micromanipulation of mammalian embryos. So far, he has published 11 book chapters, 20 review papers, 110 full international papers as well as 203 presentations at international (99 abstracts) and domestic scientific meetings (104 abstracts). He was also invited 41 times as a guest speaker at international (14 times) and domestic meetings (27 times). In 1998, he has awarded the most honor research award, Shimomura Award, from the Japanese Society of Animal Reproduction. He is a co-editor of two international journals, "Reproduction in Domestic Animal" and "Animal Science Journal".

Research Unit VEG-i-TEC of the Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health (Ghent University), led by Prof. Dr. Ir. Katleen Raes and Prof. Dr. MSc. Imca Sampers, focusses at two research lines: fermentation and chemical & microbiological quality. Theoretical knowledge is translated to concrete company situations and input is given in optimization and implementation of company-specific installations and processes. The labs are equipped with bioreactors (batch and fed-batch up to 30l, and solid-state) and downstream equipment, supported by a microbiological (L2), biochemical and analytical (GC, GC-MS, LC, LC-MS, ICP, IR) research lab. Recently, based on the research conducted at the Research Unit VEG-i-TEC, a research- and expertise center (VEG-i-TEC) for the processing of vegetables and potatoes is approved and the construction of the pilot hall is started in September 2019 (to be finished September 2021). The research of K. Raes is nowadays focused on traditional fermented foods, the use of fermentation (natural or steered) fermentation processes to obtain new food products, and the valorization of by-products by the use of enzymes or micro-organisms. In relation to traditional fermented food products, more emphasis is given to understand the different (bio) chemical processes that take place during the fermentation process, in order to be able to produce a more standardized, high quality products. Studies has been done with shrimp paste, fermented anchovies, fermented African oil beans, and traditional cereal products (e.g. injera, millet porridges). Finally a lot of agriculture products are lost, partly by overproduction or bad preservation techniques, partly because this is not edible (e.g. fruit skins, peels). Therefore this research line is focusing on the extraction of these high amounts of bio-active compounds in these sidestreams and by-products of the fruit and vegetable industry, as well as on fish by-products. The extraction is mostly done using enzymes and/or microorganisms, instead of using chemical solvents. Applications and bio-activity screening (e.g. antimicrobial, antioxidative effects) is performed using the obtained extracts. Prof. Raes has 130 international peer review publications, 3,395 citations, excluding self-citations, and an h-index of 33 (Web of Science, 04.02.2020). A full list of the bibliography can be found on https://biblio.ugent.be/person/801001275508.