Talk
Prof. Dr. Francesco Cacciola is an Associate Professor of Food Chemistry at the Dipartimento di “Scienze Biomediche, Odontoiatriche e delle Immagini Morfologiche e Funzionali” of the University Messina, Italy. He graduated in Pharmacy with 110/110 cum laude at the University of Messina in 2004, discussing a thesis entitled "Micro/HPLC/ESI/MS for the determination of anthocianins in red wines". After graduation, from February 2005 to August 2006, he was a visiting scientist at the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemical Technology at the University of Pardubice (Czech Republic) for a stage sponsored by an international project (International Research Training Network) called "Training Young Researchers in Miniaturized Comprehensive Liquid Chromatography" (Acronym Com-Chrom) and by "Bonino-Pulejo Foundation" under the supervision of Prof. Ing. Pavel Jandera, DrSc. He developed innovative analytical methods for the two-dimensional separation of polyphenols in beverages and plant extracts. In December 2005, he obtained qualification to be a pharmacist. He received his Ph.D. in “Food and Safety Chemistry” at the University of Messina in 2009, defending a thesis entitled “Employment of High Resolution HPLC Techniques for the Analysis of Complex Matrices”. In 2009, he was awarded a scholarship to work for one year as post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), Food and Drug Administration, in College Park, Maryland, USA, under the supervision of Dr. Jeanne Rader. During his research stay, he worked on the characterization of bioactive compounds contained in Stevia rebaudiana extracts by two-dimensional liquid chromatography. He currently teaches two courses at the University of Messina for the Bachelor Degree in “Gastronomic Sciences” and the Bachelor Degree in “Nutraceutical Sciences and Functional Foods”.

Bio
Dr. Petr Česla is an associate professor at the University of Pardubice, Faculty of Chemical Technology, where he received his Ph.D. in 2007 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Pavel Jandera on the topic of capillary electrophoretic separations with complex-forming agents. He finished habilitation in 2016. During his PhD studies, he was involved in several research projects. He spent eight months during a research stay at Karlstad Universitet (Sweden) within the 5th Framework EU project COM-CHROM, "Training Young Researchers in Miniaturized Comprehensive Liquid Chromatography". After finishing his PhD, he moved his attention to high-performance liquid chromatography, and especially two-dimensional liquid chromatography, retention modelling and optimization procedures in HPLC, and data processing. Lately, he has been acting as a principal investigator of several projects funded by the Czech Science Foundation, mainly focused on two-dimensional separations. He has published more than 40 original research articles in peer-reviewed journals with more than 900 citations and an H-index of 17, 3 book chapters, and has co-authored 1 monograph on the topic of HPLC. He also presented more than 100 oral presentations and 90 posters at national and international scientific meetings, including 20 invited lectures. Currently, he is leading a research team within the project “Self-adaptive multidimensional separations”, focused on the development of a new type of interface for comprehensive two-dimensional HPLC with focusing capabilities, funded by the Czech Science Foundation.

Bio
Dr. Katia Arena received her master’s degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies at the University of Messina on May 10, 2016. During her PhD, she carried out a research period at the CIAL (Instituto de Investigaciòn en Ciencias de la Alimentaciòn), Department “Bioactividad y Analisis de Alimentos”, Madrid, Spain. In 2021, she earned her PhD in “Chemical Sciences”, discussing a thesis entitled “Foodomics: LCxLC Approach in Modern Food Science”. She is currently a Research Fellow of Food Chemistry at the University of Messina. Her research activity is focused on the implementation of Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Liquid Chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry for the determination of the composition of complex food and natural matrices. She is co-author of 16 scientific articles in journals and 30 oral/poster presentations at national and international conferences; she also won the "Best Poster Award" with a poster entitled: "Production and comprehensive characterization by LC×LC-PDA/MS of aqueous phases from pyrolysis of different biomasses". Dr. Katia Arena is guest editor of the scientific journal Molecules (MDPI).