Updates on Clostridioides difficile in Europe Advances in Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Public Health Volume 18

Dr. P. Mastrantonio  has served till 2015 as research director in the Department of Infectious, Parasitic and Immune-mediated Diseases of the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS). She completed her studies in Biological Sciences at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy. She has been worked in the field of clinical bacteriology at ISS where she was appointed Director of the Laboratory of Gastroenteric and Neurologic Bacterial Diseases. In particular, she has been involved in international study groups on  Clostridium difficile  contributing to European surveillance studies to monitor the epidemiology of  C.difficile  infection. She was an Executive Committee member of the ESCMID Study Group on C. difficile (ESGCD) till 2014 and was appointed by the Italian Ministry of Health, in the years 2014-2017,  as National Microbiological Focal Point at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm.  

Dr. M. Rupnik  is professor of Microbiology at Medical faculty, University of Maribor, and Head of Department for Microbiological Research at National laboratory for health, environment and food (NLZOH) in Maribor, Slovenia. She completed University studies and PhD at Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana. Her research is focused on molecular epidemiology of  C. difficile  and lately also on gut microbiota and NGS applications in clinical microbiology. She is von Humboldt fellow, has obtained ECCMID award for Advances in Clinical Microbiology and Slovenian national award for exceptional scientific achievements. Since 2023 she acts as Editor-in-Chief for Anaerobe journal. She was a member of ESGCD Executive board and is serving as President of series of ICDS meetings (International  C. difficile  Symposium)