Jean-Luc Wertz holds degrees in chemical civil engineering and economic science from the Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and a PhD from the same university in applied science, specializing in polymer chemistry. He has had various international positions in R&D, including Spontex, where he was the Worldwide Director of R&D. He holds several patents related to various products. In his last job before his retirement in 2016, he was a project manager in biomass valorization at ValBiom and worked for more than eight years on biobased products and biorefineries. He also wrote six books: Cellulose Science and Technology (2010), Lignocellulosic Biorefineries (2013), Hemicelluloses and Lignin in Biorefineries (2018), Starch in the Bioeconomy (2020), Chitin and Chitosans in the Bioeconomy (2021), and Biomass in the Bioeconomy (2022). Serge Perez holds a doctorate in sciences from the University of Grenoble, France. He has had international exposure throughout several academic and industry positions in research laboratories in the US, Canada, and France (Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolecules Végétales, CNRS, Grenoble, as the chairperson and as director of research at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility). His research interests span the whole area of structural glycoscience, emphasizing polysaccharides, glycoconjugates, and protein-carbohydrate interactions. He has a strong interest in the economy of glycoscience and e-learning, for which he created www.glycopedia.eu. He is actively involved in scientific societies as president and past president of the European Carbohydrate Organisation. He is the author of more than 330 research publications, which are the subject of a large number of citations and references. He has also edited and written several books, including Chitin and Chitosans in the Bioeconomy (2021) and Biomass in the Bioeconomy (2022).
