New Section Editors-in-Chief for Toxins

It is a great honor to introduce two new Section Editors-in-Chief for Toxins: Prof. Sarah De Saeger and Prof. Vitor Vasconcelos. We gratefully acknowledge the outstanding service of the two out-going Section Editors: Dr. Richard A. Manderville, Section Editor-in-Chief for Mycotoxins; and Dr. John P. Berry, Section Editor-in-Chief for Marine and Freshwater Toxins. The multitude of excellent papers on mycotoxins and marine and freshwater toxins published during the tenure of Dr. Manderville and Dr. Berry attests to their hard work as Section Editors in maintaining high standards for the readers of Toxins. We are confident that Sarah De Saeger and Vitor Vasconcelos' strong academic background and connections will help continue to raise Toxins' prestige and quality.

Prof. Sarah De Saeger will serve as the Editor-in-Chief for the Mycotoxins section. Dr. De Saeger is head of the Laboratory of Food Analysis at Ghent University, Belgium. In the last 3 years, 27 research projects from her laboratory have been granted funding from EU, FAO, EFSA, as well as national funding. The laboratory focuses on four research lines: mycotoxins and human health; detection methods; metabolomics and untargeted analysis; and mycotoxin occurrence. The research covers the characterization (e.g., modified mycotoxins), exposure and screening through biomarkers, as well as the development of innovative detection methods such as molecularly imprinted polymers and biosensors’ next, chromatographic and immuno-based techniques. Research results have been published in more than 200 A1 peer reviewed papers. Sarah De Saeger is coordinating the MYTOX platform.

Prof. Vitor Vasconcelos will serve as the Editor-in-Chief for the Marine and Freshwater Toxins section. Dr. Vasconcelos is a professor at the Faculty of Sciences of Porto University and researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center of Marine and Environmental Research—CIIMAR. He earnt his PhD in Biology at FCUP, Porto. He is currently the Director of the Group of Blue Biotechnology and Ecotoxicology (LEGE lab), studying natural toxins and other bioactive substances and their effects on environmental and human health. His main research efforts focus on the diversity, intoxication dynamics and environmental and human health risks of cyanobacterial toxins. More recently, he has worked on marine emergent toxins and associated organisms: tetrodotoxins, ciguatoxins, palitoxins and analogues. Dr. Vasconcelos is responsible for the LEGE culture collection, comprising more than 400 strains of cyanobacteria of marine and freshwater origin. He has supervised 65 MSC and 25 PhD students. He has published 270 papers in the fields of Toxicology and Biotechnology and has participated in more than 40 projects; currently, he is the coordinator of two projects and participates in two H2020 project on Blue Biotechnology.