Metagenomics in Biotechnology

Prof. Abd El-Latif Hesham is currently a Full Professor of Microbial Genetics and Environmental Meta-Genome Biotechnology and Head of the Genetics Department at Beni-Suef University (BSU), Egypt. He earned a PhD from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has authored over 100 publications in esteemed journals, two books, and a number of book chapters and contributed to international research projects in microbial genetics and applied biotechnology. Prof. Hesham is actively involved in various committees, conferences, and societies globally, receiving recognition for his work through prestigious awards and appointments including Country Representative for Egypt and the Arab Counties by the International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation Society (IBBS), UK, which is part of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS). He also serves as an editorial board member for a number of journals including Scientific Reports, Current Bioinformatics, Frontiers in Microbiology, and International Journal of Genomics and Biocatalysis.

Dr. Samir I. Gadow is currently an Associate Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the National Research Centre in Cairo, Egypt. He received his PhD degree in Environmental Studies from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan where he is conducting research activities in the areas of waste and wastewater management with a special focus on bioreactor technology and wastewater engineering. Dr. Gadow's research activities concern the development of an innovative bioreactor system for wastewater treatment and bioenergy recovery with energy saving in mind. He has published more than 30 papers in journals and conferences proceedings. Dr. Gadow has gained multinational experience through working in diversified bilingual environments and participating in several international conferences, fairs, and multicultural-oriented programs.

Dr. Minaxi Sharma is currently working as an 'Assistant Professor in Smart Food' at China Beacons of Excellence Research and Innovation Institute (CBI), University of Nottingham Ningbo China (CBI-UNNC), Ningbo, China. Her research area is dedicated to advancing the future of the food by developing cutting-edge food processing technologies, nanoencapsulation strategies, 3D food printing, and innovative green extraction methods for food waste valorization to develop smart and functional foods. Dr. Sharma has been awarded with 'Young Scientist Award'; with prestigious "The BEWARE Fellowship? co-funded by the Marie Actions Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) of the European Commission from 2021-2024 (Belgium), and have been listed among World's Top 2% Scientists by Elsevier and Stanford University ranking (2023, 2025). She is the editor of few international journals including, Scientific Reports, Biofuel Research Journal, Journal of Food Biochemistry, Journal of Food Processing and Preservation, Indian Journal of Microbiology, Frontiers in Nutrition, etc.

Dr. Deepti Diwan is a research instructor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Washington University School of medicine, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. Dr. Diwan has garnered more than ten years of multidisciplinary research experience in diverse fields, including cancer, epigenetics, erythropoiesis, genomics, hemorrhagic stroke, microbiology/virology, nanotechnology, nanomedicine, protein-carbohydrate interactions, and radiation biology. She contributed to numerous research and review articles and presented academic and research-based papers at several national and international conferences. She also serves as an editor of international journals, namely, Biomaterials and Polymers Horizon, Nanofabrication, and Microbial Biosystems. Dr. Diwan and her group developed Genome Profiling (GP) technology and Microarray-with-Manageable Volumes (MMV) techniques. They were the first to successfully test the application of GP and MMV at the single-cell level to detect intra-organism differences.