Dr. Bruno Sommer Ferreira has a Chemical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, and holds a PhD in Biotechnology, Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal). He pursued his studies at the same institution and at the University of Toronto (Canada). His research experience spans industrial biotechnology, bioprocess development, optimization and scale-up and bioprocess design. He has worked with diverse biological systems, including microalgae, protists, bacteria, yeasts, fungi and animal cells, including stem cells. He published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, books, book chapters and patent applications. Bruno is co-founder and CEO of Biotrend, a company specialized in bioprocess development, optimization and scale-up; co-founder of Silicolife, a leading computational biology company and is Executive Director for Research and Innovation for the A4F – Algae for Future group of companies (to which Biotrend is part of since 2020). Currently serves on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the BioBased Industries Consortium (Belgium), Chairman of the Portuguese Bioindustries Association and Vice-Chairman of BlueBioAlliance, a non-profit association gathering all relevant players in marine biotechnology with activities in Portugal. Has also served as Vice-President of the Board and member of the Executive Committee of BioRef – Collaborative Laboratory on Biorefineries (Portugal), He was member of the Scientific Committee of the COST Association and evaluator of innovation projects submitted to the Innovation Fund Denmark, the Flanders Innovation and Entrepreneurship and to the Research Council of Norway. Bruno has also evaluated projects submitted to the Eurostars programme, to FP7, H2020, Horizon Europe and to the ERA-Net Marine Biotechnology and ERA-Net Industrial Biotechnology joint calls. He contributed to advisory groups for the Portuguese Government, the European Commission, the OECD on the topic of the bioeconomy. He advises public and private initiatives aiming to bridge the gap between biotechnology research and commercial applications and authored foresight reports on the potential of industrial biotechnology for leading international publishers. Bruno has been Principal Investigator in more than 25 international collaborative research projects in the fields of industrial and marine biotechnology and has profound experience in managing scientific teams with the goal to develop optimised and robust bioprocesses that can be transferred to commercial scale.