**About the Editors**

**Iza Radecka** is a Professor in Biotechnology at the School of Sciences at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. After graduating in 1990 with an MSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Silesia, Poland, she undertook a research position in the Institute of Polymer Chemistry at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Zabrze, Poland. After this, she decided to take a PhD post at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Silesia, with a special interest in microbial biotechnology. After completing her PhD in 1998, Iza joined the School of Sciences at the University of Wolverhampton. Iza teaches a wide variety of microbiology and biotechnology courses, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research is focused on cost-effective synthesis of new biomaterials using bacterial biopolymers produced from bacteria and using eco-sustainable feedstock and their chemical derivatization. She has published numerous research papers in highly ranked scientific journals, as well as authored several chapters in biotechnological books. Iza has also presented several invited lectures at international conferences. Iza is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.

**Marek M. Kowalczuk** is Professor at the Centre of Polymer and Carbon Materials at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Zabrze, Poland, and Emeritus Professor in synthetic/polymer chemistry at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He received his PhD in 1984 from the Faculty of Chemistry, Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland, and his DSc in 1994 from the same university. Since 2010, he has been Professor of Chemistry, nominated by the President of Poland. He has been Visiting Professor at Ohio State University, Columbus, USA; Visiting Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA; and a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Bologna, Italy. Recently, he was elected as a member of the Chemistry Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is author and co-author of over 200 scientific papers and several patents. His main scientific interests are biodegradable and functional polymer biomaterials, novel initiators and mechanisms of anionic polymerisation related to the synthesis of biodegradable polymers possessing the desired architecture, the biodegradation of polymers, polymer mass spectrometry, and forensic engineering of advanced polymeric materials.

*Communication*
