Dr. Gergana Zahmanova has been an assistant professor in Molecular Biology at the Department of Molecular Biology, University of Plovdiv, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, since February 2007. She received her MSc degree in Biology (Specialization in Plant Biotechnology) from the University of Plovdiv in 1999 and her PhD degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski” in 2009. She has worked as a working visitor at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK, several times for short periods. Since December 2017, she has been a research fellow at the Department of Technology Transfer and IP Management, Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology. Her scientific interests mainly include plant-based vaccines, edible vaccines, plant molecular farming, viral nanotechnology, zoonotic viruses, protein expression in plants, and mAbs expression in plants.

Dr. Katerina Takova is a PhD in Plant Physiology, researcher and educator at the Department of Molecular Biology, Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”, Plovdiv, Bulgaria. She received her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski” in July 2022. She worked as an intern at Erasmus Exchange, Universidade do Algarve from February to July 2017, as a young researcher at the University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski” from April to September 2021, and as a Biology Teacher at Tzar Simeon Veliki, Private School from February 2019 to October 2022. As a natural consequence of the accumulated knowledge, she is currently working on adapting innovative educational approaches in practice. Her main research interests are ELISA, virology, vaccines, hepatitis E virus, zoonosis, VLP, immunological assays, and plant expression system.

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Prof. Dr. Anton Andonov is an adjunct professor at the Department of Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. He received his MD degree from Leningrad Medical Institute in 1967–1973, and his Ph.D. degree from Bulgarian Medical Academy, Institute of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases in 1976–1980. He worked as Head of Molecular & Immunodiagnostics, Bloodborne Pathogens and Hepatitis at National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada since July 1998. Since February 2000, he has been the Section Head at the Public Health Agency of Canada. After retiring from the Public Health Agency of Canada, he has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Manitoba since July 2019. He has 68 publications, with more than 3900 citations (Scopus, 3 April 2024), and an h-index of 23. His main areas of expertise are public health, epidemiology, program evaluation, etc.