**Pen ´elope Garc´ıa-Angulo**

Penelope Garc ´ ´ıa-Angulo (Plant Physiology Associate Professor, Doctor) obtained a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the ULE in 2005 with a cum laude score. From April 2006 to date, she has been carrying out her work as a lecturer and researcher in the plant physiology area of the ULE, first as an assistant professor (from 2006 to 2009), later as a lecturer (from 2009 to 2019), and currently as an associate professor. During the 2004–2020 period, she published 32 scientific papers in journals in the plant science field according to the Journal Citation Reports. She is a co-author of two non-indexed publications with an index of relative quality, two book chapters, one book, and two patents. She has presented 21 communications at international scientific congresses and 22 at national congresses. Moreover, she has participated as a collaborator in nine research projects and three company agreements via article 83. She was (2016–2019) the principal researcher and the coordinator of a challenge-collaboration project with an enterprise. She has been the supervisor of 4 Doctoral theses and 2 Bachelor theses, as well as the tutor of 17 research projects. From 2010 to 2016, she was the Coordinator of the Biotechnology Degree at the University of Leon, and currently, ´ she is the Coordinator of the Bachelor of Excellence in Sciences at the ULE. For many years, Penelope ´ Garc´ıa-Angulo's research interest has been focused on plant cell wall polymers, such as cellulose, hemicelluloses, pectins, and lignin, and their plasticity under stress situations, as some of the cell wall modifications that take place during stress situations could have important biotechnological applications. As part of this research, she has worked with in vitro cultures of different species, and over the last 5 years, Penelope has been the scientific advisor-in-chief of the Agrovet Healthy ´ Plants Biotechnological Institute, which is a private enterprise focused on the production of certified pathogen-free plants. As part of the certification program, the enterprise has developed, under her supervision, an apical shoot meristem regeneration culture program, different pathogen detection techniques, and chemical fingerprinting protocols. Over the last 5 years, her research has focused on the role of the cell wall in plant defense.

#### **Asier Largo-Gosens**

Asier Largo-Gosens (Plant Physiology Lecturer, Doctor) is a plant physiology researcher currently specializing in plant molecular biology and biotechnology. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Biological Sciences at the Universidad de Leon (Spain) in 2016 with a cum laude score (the highest ´ score) and was awarded an Extraordinary Doctorate Award in the sciences by the Universidad de Leon in 2020. He carried out a short stay at CRAG in Cerdanyola del Vall ´ es (Barcelona, Spain) in ` 2012. He also participated in a long Postdoctoral stay at the Universidad Andres Bello (Santiago, ´ Chile) from 2017 to 2021. During his stay, he obtained Postdoctoral FONDECYT project (Conicyt, Chile) funding (approx. 90,000 EUR, 2017–2020). He also worked on two Postdoctoral contracts from the Universidad Andres Bello (2020 and 2021), and currently, he is a Postdoctoral "Mar ´ ´ıa Zambrano" fellow at the Universidad de Leon under the supervision of Dr. M ´ elida (Universidad de Le ´ on). ´

His research has been focused on understanding the synthesis and metabolism of different carbohydrate components of plant cell walls and on the role of the cell wall of microorganisms in their interactions with plants. During his research, he co-authored 12 scientific papers, all published in Q1 JCR journals. He has participated in three Spanish national projects and one local research project and has supervised one FONDECYT Postdoctoral project of CONICYT (Chile). The results of his research have been presented in 12 scientific meetings. He was the supervisor of one Undergraduate thesis of a Biotechnology degree and one Master's thesis of a Master's in Biotechnology and Life, both degrees of the UNAB (Chile), and he is currently supervising two Undergraduate theses and one Ph.D. student. He has participated in the teaching duties of practical classes in Biology and Biotechnology degrees at the Universidad de Leon 2012–2013 (20 hours), as an associate professor in ´ the Plant and Environmental Biotechnology subject of the Biotechnology degree from the Universidad Andres Bello (Chile) in 2021 (45 hours), and in the teaching duties of the Plant Physiology area of the ´ Universidad de Leon in 2022–2023 (60 hours). ´
