Gustavo Benaim is currently working as Head at the Unit of Cell Signaling and Biochemistry of Parasites, Fundación Instituto de Estudios Avanzados (IDEA), Caracas, Venezuela, and Head of the Laboratory of Biophysics, Experimental Biology Institute, Universidad Central de Venezuela. Since 1979, he has served as a Professor at the School of Biology, Faculty of Science, Central University of Venezuela (UCV). He conducts research in Parasitology in the field of trypanosomatids, working with Trypanosoma cruzi, the causal agent for Chagas disease or American Trypanosomiasis, and various species of Leishmania on the search for new or repositioned drugs and their effects on the intracellular Ca2+ regulation in parasites. He also works in cancer research. His current project is related to Intracellular Ca2+ regulation, sphingolipids, their its interaction with apoptosis. Throughout his career, he has received several awards, including the National Prize of Science (Venezuela) in 2021, the Award of the Polar Enterprise Foundation “Lorenzo Mendoza Fleury” in 2007, and a Rockefeller Foundation “Biotechnology Career Fellowship Award” in 1991. He has held several academic positions, including Director of the Center of Bioscience and Molecular Medicine (2007–2010), Instituto de Estudios Avanzados (IDEA), and President of the Postgraduate Program in Cell Biology (1995–2001). Faculty of Science. Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Dr. Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi is the Assistant Director of Microbiology at the Mount Sinai Hospital and an Assistant Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He holds a Ph.D. in Fundamental Medical Sciences from the Universidad de los Andes (VE) in 2017. He was the Academic Director and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the IDB Clinic (Barquisimeto, Venezuela). He was also head of the Infectious Disease Pathology Laboratory and is currently the coordinator of the Zoonosis and Emerging Pathogens Regional Collaborative Network (Venezuelan Research Incubator), as well as a member of the Venezuelan Academy of Medicine in Caracas, Venezuela. He is a US-, EU-, and Venezuela-licensed physician and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow). His main research interests are focused on the eco-epidemiological and pathological aspects of arthropod-borne viruses/protozoa and trypanosomatid parasitic infections.