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Dr. Maria Antonietta Ciardiello is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources, (IBBR), CNR, Naples, Italy. She received a degree in Biological Sciences from the University “Federico II” of Naples in 1985. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemical Sciences from the Universities of Naples and Bari in 1991. She has been working as a researcher at CNR since 1992. In 1997, she had an EMBO grant and a fellowship in the framework of the CNR Programme “Short-term Mobility”, both to visit the Laboratoire de Biochimie, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. Her research interests include the study of the structural and functional properties of food and environmental proteins and peptides, their physiological role and their impact on human health. Her preferred topics involve proteins purified from their natural source by classical biochemical methods and identified by direct amino acid sequencing. More recently, she has focused her attention on the features of allergenic proteins, especially those derived from plant-based foods. Her research group identified, characterized and obtained the registration of several allergens by the WHO/IUIS Allergen Nomenclature Sub-committee. She participated in the implementation of a new allergy diagnostic test, namely the FABER® test, responsible for the allergen quality included in the biochip. Her interests in protein biochemistry have since expanded to additional biological properties beyond allergenicity.

Dr. Maurizio Tamburrini is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Biosciences and BioResources (IBBR), CNR, Naples, Italy. He obtained a degree in Biological Sciences in 1982 and was awarded a fellowship from the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) in 1983. From 1983 to 1987, he was awarded a fellowship for a Research Doctorate Course in Biochemical Sciences at the Universities of Naples and Bari, Italy. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemical Sciences in 1988. He then took a post-doctoral position at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, Nutley, NJ, USA. He has been a Senior Researcher at CNR since 1997. His research interests include (1) the study of the structural and functional properties of food and environmental proteins and peptides, and their physiological role and impact on human health; (2) protein purification from natural sources and identification; (3) protein characterization, including the elucidation of the primary structure and of post-translational modifications through amino acid sequencing and mass spectrometry, as well as the study of the secondary and tertiary structure via circular dichroism spectroscopy and bioinformatic tools. He has also been a member of the Italian National Biologists Order since 1984 and the Italian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since 1985.

Dr. Lisa Tuppo is a Researcher at the Institute of Biosciences and BioResources (IBBR), CNR, Naples, Italy. She obtained a degree in Biological Science at the University “Federico II” of Naples with 110/110 cum laude in 2004. In 2006, she was awarded a fellowship from the Centro di Competenza “Bioteknet” of Campania Region, at the Italian National Research Council (CNR), Institute of Protein Biochemistry (IBP), Naples, Italy. In 2010, she worked as researcher at the Center for Molecular Allergology, IDI-IRCCS, Rome, Italy, in the framework of the research programme with IBP-CNR, Naples, Italy. She achieved her Ph.D. in Cell Biochemistry from the Second University of Naples (SUN) in 2014. She then obtained a permanent contract at Allergy Data Laboratories (ADL S.r.l., Latina, Italy) as an expert in protein biochemistry for a scientific collaboration project with IBBR-CNR. She has been employed as a researcher at the Institute of Biosciences and BioResources (IBBR), CNR since 2020. Her research interests are focused on the structural, functional and immunological characterization of proteins and peptides from food and environmental sources, with potential effects on human health.

Adriano Mari graduated in Medicine at the Rome University "Sapienza" in 1980 and specialised in Allergology in 1983. In addition to his clinical training, he worked as a laboratory researcher in a long-lasting collaboration with the Laboratory of Immunology at the Italian National Institute of Health (1984-2000). Since the early nineties, he has resumed his clinical allergology practice as an allergist working in local settings of the Italian National Healthcare System. In the second half of the nineties, he worked on a large-scale molecular allergology project, leading to the identification of many allergenic molecules, the development of microarrays as the main tool for investigations in allergy diagnostics, the creation of the Allergome web platform, and so on. He is a member of the Subcommittee for the Standardization and Quality Assessment of Immunological Diagnostics of the International Union of Immunological Societies. He was the creator of the first Center for Molecular Allergology and is the co-founder of the CAAM. Currently, he is the unanimously appointed Founder, Director, and Representative of the CAAM. Together with the other CAAM specialists, he contributed to the design and release of the second-generation molecule-based test for allergy diagnosis, the FABER IgE test, and of the original dynamic visualization system of the test results, the CDRS.

Claudia Alessandri graduated in Medicine in 1977 at the Rome University "Sapienza" and specialized in Pediatrics in 1980 and Childcare in 1985. For over 25 years, she has been interested in paediatric allergies, and over 10 years ago, she began her personal journey in Molecular Allergology. As she was extremely interested in the subject, at the beginning of 2008, she transferred her business from one of the largest departments of paediatrics in Rome to the Molecular Allergology Center by integrating her healthcare activity with that of research in the paediatric age, effectively complementing the activities already taking place in the center dedicated to teenagers, adults and seniors. She has performed fundamental research on the markers of severity of food allergy in children, mainly in cow's milk, eggs, and plant-based food allergies. In collaboration with the other CAAM members and researchers from other research centers, she has identified and characterized new allergenic molecules, and, thanks to microarray-based diagnostics, she has identified new molecular profiles, leading to innovative schemes for therapeutic intervention in allergic children. She is a co-founder of CAAM, sharing its spirit and philosophy and contributing to its organization and development. Together with the other CAAM specialists, she contributed to the design and release of the second-generation molecule-based test for allergy diagnosis, the FABER IgE test.