I am Dr. Eva Sanjuán, an Assistant Professor (Ayudante Doctor) affiliated with the Department of Microbiology at the University of Valencia (UV) and an member of the PAFZP (Pathogens in Aquaculture: Fish and Zoonotic Pathogens) research group since its establishment. After completing my Bachelor’s degree, I was hired as a Research Assistant in Dr. Amaro’s laboratory and began my doctoral thesis titled “Epidemiology and Phylogeny of the Pathogen V. vulnificus Biotype 2.” My PhD was awarded Excellent Cum Laude and honored with the “Extraordinary Doctoral Award.”

After earning my doctorate, I was invited to join Dr. Seshu’s laboratory at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). During my postdoctoral research, I focused on investigating the global regulatory protein Carbon Storage Regulator A (CsrA) and its role in the biology of Borrelia burgdorferi.

In mid-2010, I rejoined the laboratory of my former supervisor, Dr. Carmen Amaro, to participate in the MICROGEN project. I developed a research project that was awarded a highly competitive “Juan de la Cierva” fellowship in 2011. Over the course of this three-year project, I sequenced the genome of a Vibrio vulnificus biotype 2 strain and developed a custom microarray to study the mechanisms of infection in both fish and human hosts.

Since the conclusion of my Juan de la Cierva (JdC) fellowship, I held several postdoctoral research positions funded by various national projects. During this period, I primarily served as a research supervisor in the laboratory, mentoring and guiding multiple doctoral students while contributing to the experimental design of a significant portion of the studies conducted during that time. In February 2023, I secured my first position as an Assistant Professor at the University of La Laguna (ULL) in Tenerife.

As a principal investigator, I have led a project funded by the ULL-Campus of International Excellence and actively contributed to 18 national and international research initiatives, including a project under the European Sixth Framework Programme, a CONSOLIDER project. During all these years I have also participated in numerous collaborative agreements with industry and institutional partners. My research output, as documented in the SCOPUS and Google Scholar databases, includes 29 and 37 publications, 761 and 1,136 citations, and an H-index of 16 and 19, respectively. I currently supervise one doctoral candidate and have guided 6 Master’s projects and 12 undergraduate theses to completion. Additionally, I have mentored 15 vocational training students in laboratory techniques at both higher and intermediate levels. I have been recognized with two ‘sexenios de investigación’. I am an appointed external expert on Vibrio for the ECDC and the EFSA. Notably, I was invited by EFSA to participate as an expert in the working group on public health risks associated with the consumption of Vibrio-contaminated foods.

Luis Javier Barriga Cuartero graduated in Biology from the University of Alicante (2014-2018), major in Biotechnology and Biosanitary. During the 2018-2019 academic year, he transferred to the University of Valencia where he joined the Master's Degree in Research in Molecular, Cellular and Genetic Biology. Subsequently, he was contracted as a non-doctoral researcher in the PAFZP research group in various research projects related to the identification of pathogens in aquaculture and in the assessment of biofilm formation of marine bacteria and diatoms. Currently, he is enrolled  in the Doctoral Program in Biomedicine and Biotechnology of the UV with a pre-doctoral contract (AGE-FORDOC. FPI) to carry out his doctoral thesis entitled: Emergent vibriosis in Aquaculture related to climate change.