Naga Raju Maddela received his M.Sc. (1996-1998) and Ph.D. (2012) in Microbiology from Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapuramu, India. During his doctoral program in the area of Environmental Microbiology, he investigated the effects of industrial effluents/insecticides on soil microorganisms and their biological activities and he has been working as a Faculty in Microbiology since 1998, teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students. He received "Prometeo Investigator Fellowship" (2013-2015) from Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT), Ecuador, and "Postdoctoral Fellowship" (2016-2018) from Sun Yat-sen University, China. He also received external funding from "China Postdoctoral Science Foundation" in 2017, internal funding from "Universidad Técnica de Manabí" in 2020, worked in the area of Environmental Biotechnology, participated in 20 national / international conferences, and presented research data in China, Cuba, Ecuador, India and Singapore. Since 2018, he is working as a Full Professor at the Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Portoviejo, Ecuador. He has published 15 Books, 40 Chapters and 80 research papers. Dr. Venkataramana Thiriveedi completed his Ph.D. (2018) from the University of Hyderabad in India. During his doctoral program, he focused on the biology of the electron transport chain in mitochondria. He identified an essential role for glutathionylated hMia40 (CHCHD4) in mitochondrial electron transport chain biogenesis. His studies shed light on a previously unknown post-translational modification of hMIA40 that impacts reactive oxygen species levels and cellular redox homeostasis. He received the Indian council of medical research- senior research fellowship (ICMR-SRF), India. He also received an Award of Research proficiency from the University of Hyderabad in recognition of Publishing the research article in Redox biology. He published four research papers during his doctoral program, participated in 10 national and international conferences, presented research data in India and the USA, and presented his research data in Ecuador as an invited speaker. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral associate at Duke University medical center, USA. During his postdoctoral training, he focused on how the commensal microbiota regulates intestinal stem cell function in epithelial tissue. Dr. Ratna Silviya Lodi has received her bachelor, masters and Ph.D. degrees in Microbiology in the years 2009, 2011 and 2017, respectively, in India. During her doctoral thesis, she worked on Molecular Detection and Evaluation of Candida sps (albicans and non-albicans) from Oral Infections of Diabetic Patients. She finished her first postdoctoral research at Jiangsu University, China during 2019-2021, where she investigated GDF-15 promotes colorectal cancer development by up- regulating immune checkpoint TIGIT/CD-155. She has hands-on experience in the microbiological and molecular biological techniques, very particularly in medical field. Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral research fellow at Shandong academy of agricultural sciences, Jinan, Shandong province, China; working on Diversity, composition, anti-microbial and anti- cancer activity of culturable microbial endophytes in Panax quinquefolius (American ginseng). To her credit, there are around 20 scientific publications, and presented her data in more than 10 international conferences.
