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Allegra Via is an Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome. Trained in physics and bioinformatics, she integrates structural biology, genomics, and machine learning to investigate variants associated with diseases, drug resistance, infectious diseases, and complex genetic traits. Active in training at both the national and international levels, she has established and coordinated the ELIXIR-IT Training Platform and currently leads the ELIXIR Train the Trainer programme, promoting innovation in education.

Rino Ragno is a full professor of medicinal chemistry in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Technology at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine at Sapienza University in Rome. He is responsible for teaching medicinal chemistry at various levels, including bachelor's, master's, single cycle master's and doctoral courses. He finished the five-year Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology course at Sapienza University of Rome with distinction in 1989. From 1996 to 1998, he spent two years at the Center for Molecular Design laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis (MO, USA), funded by the Italian NIH and directed by Prof. Garland Marshal. In 1999, he founded a new medicinal chemistry design laboratory (the Rome Center for Molecular Design), with the aim of applying computational methods in this field. In 2005, he was awarded by the Italian Chemical Society's Italian Division of Medicinal Chemistry in recognition of his research in the field of medicinal chemistry. He is the co-author of 180 published national and international papers (171 of which are listed on scopus.com), and has presented over 170 posters and oral communications at international meetings. In 2016, he launched a new drug design platform at www.3d-qsar.com, enabling all non-profit users to perform QSAR, 3D-QSAR, molecular docking and COMBINE analyses. More than 1,200 users from over 100 countries are registered on the portal. The main fields of Rino Ragno research interest are: – Computational Medinal Chemistry; – Development of new QSAR and 3-D QSAR methods; – Extraction, analysis and biological activity of natural compounds with emphasis on essential oils; – Development of scientific websites (www.3d-qsar.com, db.3d-qsar.com and www.ai4essoil.com). – Drug design through computational techniques: artificial intelligence algorithms, molecular docking, molecular dynamics. – Virtual screening to select potential new bioactive compounds.

Stefano has been a full professor of Biochemistry and Bioinformatics at Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Biochemical Sciences since 2001 and has been coordinator of the PhD programme in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology since 2024. His scientific interests focus mainly on structural bioinformatics applied to the analysis of proteins and variants involved in diseases. He has recently studied the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and its variants, as well as eukaryotic and prokaryotic membrane transporters of vitamin B6.