The Spanish Network on Mycotoxins, Toxigenic Fungi and their Decontamination Processes held an international symposium at the Faculty of Pharmacy to celebrate Guillermina Font’s, (Toxicology full university professor) and Jordi Mañes’, (Nutrition and Food Science full university professor) 70th birthday and their 45th year as researchers.

The homage coincided with the symposium’s inauguration attended by the Vice-principal of Innovation and Trasfer and the dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy. Former deans and retired and active professors of the Faculty were also in attendance.

Professors Fond and Mañes created the research group Contamination of Food (COAL) in the mid-1980s, in which doctoral theses have been made and 5 full university professors, 6 tenured university professors, 3 PhD hired professors and 7 current PhD assistant lecturers of the UV were formed, in addition to others who work in the Valencian Department of Healthcare, Education or in private companies. As well as several professors and researchers working in Portugal, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, France, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Romania, among others, have carried out pre- or post-doctoral stays within COAL, a group that has always maintained a clear international vocation.

COAL, along with other research groups of the Faculties of Pharmacy and Biology, have been responsible for the positioning of Food Science and Technology at the UV as the first in Spain and one of the first in Europe, which will now surely continue to be supported by the new research groups working in the field of food.

COAL has recently been closed down as a UV research group, although Biotech-Agrifood has emerged from it, led by Professor Giuseppe Meca, with the aim of taking the basic knowledge obtained on mycotoxins and toxigenic fungi to the industrial development of decontamination techniques under the umbrella of AgrotechUV.

The symposium was attended by the 13 Spanish research groups that make up the network plus a large number of researchers from France, England, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Romania and Poland, who were joined online for the tribute event by numerous professors and researchers from more than 20 Spanish and foreign centres. During the symposium, homage was also paid to Professor Alberto Ritieni, of the University of Naples, who passed away recently and with whom Professors Font and Mañes have collaborated for many years.