Graziano Fiorito is a biologist with over thirty years’ experience in research on biological, neural and behavioral plasticity. He is currently Senior Scientist at the Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples (Italy). G. Fiorito main research interest is on how neural circuity controls complex behaviour including individual and social learning.

He has been active in promoting best-practice and scientific approaches for improvement of animal welfare in scientific research as applied to cephalopod molluscs.

Together with Dr Ponte and other colleagues, G. Fiorito is committed to create a community-based resource and guidance for the use of cephalopods as experimental animals in compliance to the Directive 2010/63/EU.

Graziano Fiorito is Cephalopod Biology and Care (CBC) training program Director and Course Organizer.

David Anderson BVMS MVM MRCVS
David Anderson is a Vice-President of IAT, Past President of LASA and a current member of LAVA Council.
He is a veterinary surgeon with over thirty-five years experience in practice, academia and government service. He worked initially in a University teaching environment where he developed an interest and expertise in veterinary reproduction, and was Named Veterinary Surgeon under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act.
Until 2010, he worked in the UK Home Office in the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Inspectorate and advised on the care and use of animals in scientific procedures, and was involved in the development of improved practices in welfare, accommodation and care of animals used in scientific procedures in UK and Europe.
Since 2011, his main role has been to provide technical support to the European Commission during the transposition of the new European Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes.
In his “spare” time, he continues to enjoy curling and golf.

Paul Andrews PhD, DSc is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Physiology at St George’s University of London, UK and holds an honorary Research Fellowship at Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples in the Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms. His main area of research is digestive tract disorders in relation to identification of novel drug therapies with recent studies focusing on application of non-animal methodologies. He has had a long- standing interest in comparative physiology of the digestive tract including cephalopods. Over the last 10 years he has worked closely with Dr Fiorito and Dr Ponte on application of Directive 2010/63/EU to cephalopods, development of guidelines for care and welfare, and severity assessment.

Pamela Imperadore is involved in different research projects with two major focuses: the investigation of the mechanisms controlling regeneration and the identification of the molecular machinery of nociception in cephalopod mollusks. Currently, she is a permanent staff member of the Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples (Italy). Pamela got her PhD in 2017 in Animal Biology (University of Calabria, Italy) studying nerve regeneration in the common octopus.

Since 2018 she is contributing to the McDonnell Initiative promoting collaboration amongst historians and philosophers of science and practicing life scientists in studies of regeneration across complex living systems..

Joao Pereira is serving the DGRM (Directorate-General for Natural Resources, Safety and Maritime Services) fulfilling an administrative role in charge of fisheries management, for the past 4 years. Joao Pereira is senior researcher of IPMA (Portuguese Sea and Atmosphere Research Institute, Portugal). Dr Pereira has a long-standing interest in minimizing unnecessary mortality and suffering of animals during fishing, and optimizing fishing process.

Jan-Bas Prins did his PhD in Laboratory Animal Science with Professor Van Zutphen at the University of Utrecht. After post-doctoral projects at the University of Oxford, UK, and the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, he became the head of the pre-clinical division of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at the Erasmus Medical Centre.
In 2002, he moved on taking the position of Director of the Central Animal Facility of the Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. In 2018, he took up the position at the Francis Crick Institute.

He is a former President of FELASA.

He is a member of the Netherlands National Committee for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, Chairman of Laboratory Animals Ltd, member of the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Guido Bernardini on Education and Training in Laboratory Animal Science, Vice-President of the Institute of Animal Technology, and an AAALAC ad hoc specialist.

Giovanna Ponte is Scientist at the Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples (Italy). She earned her degree on Pharmacological Chemistry (University of Naples Federico II, Italy) and a PhD in Animal Biology (University of Calabria, Italy) with a project focused on localization of biogenic amines in octopus.

G. Ponte has over ten years experience in studying the neural modulation and brain complexity with an evolutionary approach focusing on cephalopods. Her interest on animal welfare as applied to cephalopods, allowed her to be the proposer and the Chair of the COST Action FA1301, the first networking initiative dedicated to cephalopods ever funded.

Since 2010, she has been working to facilitate implementation of the European Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, as applied to cephalopod molluscs.

Her main interest is the neural modulatory mechanisms governing physiological and behavioral plasticity with particular attention to the cephalopod mollusc Octopus vulgaris.

Professor Patri Vergara, DVM, PhD, DipECLAM

Professor in Physiology at the School of Veterinary Science, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain.

Person responsible for the education and training of personnel who use animals for scientific purposes. Course co-ordinator for: FELASA Accredited course for scientists, functions a, b, c, d; UAB-ECLAM training program; Master Course in Laboratory Animal Science and Welfare (FELASA accredited as Specialist programme) and Certificate in Laboratory Animal Science and Medicine (VetCEE approved).

FELASA 40 Years Anniversary EducationalAward.

President of the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS). Coordinator of the ICLAS Network for Promoting Animal Quality in Research.

Former Chair of the FELASA Accreditation Board for Training and Education in Laboratory Animal Science.

Member of the European Platform for Education and Training in Laboratory Animal Science (ETPLAS).

Charter Diplomate of the European College for Laboratory Animal Medicine (ECLAM).

Responsible for a research group on digestive diseases since 1999. Interests in research: neurogastroenterology, mast cells, microbiota, IBD, IBS.

Responsible for SIAL/UAB (Integrative services for laboratory animals at the UAB) which supports basic research projects using animal models, carries out preclinical studies and acts as the distribution centre for ICLAS Laboratory Animal Quality Network programs.

FELASA D – Laboratory Animal Science Specialist
Certificate in “Laboratory Animal Science and Medicine” recognized by VetCEE
ESLAV and ECLAM Member
Currently: Designated Veterinarian for Merck RBM S.p.A (Ivrea, Italy), Fondazione IRET ONLUS (Bologna, Italy), VETSPIN srl (Bologna, Italy)

PhD, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Padova (Italy) and Department of Pathobiology, University of Veterinary Medicine of Wien, Vienna (Austria)

Clinical competencies of veterinary medicine; Experimental competencies in all animals used for scientific purposes (Directive 2010-63-EU); Training, Education and  Mentoring to the personnel involved in in vivo experiments design/execution in agreement with current legislation and AAALAC guidelines; Maintenance of mouse transgenic colonies; Surgical procedures (orthotopic and subcutaneous transplantation); Patient-Derived Xenographs (PDX); Cytology; Flow-cytometry; Histopathology; Immunohistochemistry; Necropsy; Tissue trimming; Cell cultures; Techniques of medical biotechnology.

Before retirement, Dr Smith’s career spanned almost 50 years in Pharmaceutical Research and Development in the discipline of toxicology. He continues to be active in the field of laboratory animal science (LAS).
He is currently Immediate Past-President of ETPLAS, the Education & Training Platform for LAS. He has served as Vice President (VP) of European Affairs for the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Associations (FELASA) and also held the position of President.
He is a Past-President of the UK Laboratory Animal Science Association (LASA) where he received their Medal for services to LAS. He was nominated as an “Expert in toxicology”; for the European Consensus of Platforms on Alternatives (ECOPA) and has been a past-Board member of the UK National Centre for Replacement, Reduction and Refinement (NC3Rs) during its first four years in operation. He is a past member of the UK Home Office Animal Procedures Committee (APC). He is a past chair of the Animal Welfare Body for the MRC Centre for Macaques at Porton Down. He has been member of the Animal Welfare Body of Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (Napoli), and member of the Animal Welfare Body of the Association for Cephalopod Research ‘CephRes’.
Dr Smith has chaired a number of European technical working parties for both the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations and FELASA. These groups have developed good working practices for early toxicity testing in dogs, minimizing dog use in pre-clinical toxicology and a good practice guide to administration of substances and removal of blood.
As Convenor of a FELASA working group, Dr Smith has developed guidance on
continuing professional development (CPD) for those involved in animal research.
He has also chaired a joint working group of LASA and the UK Home Office Animal Procedures Committee which examined the feasibility of reporting the severity of procedures on animals. He represented industry and FELASA on a number of Expert Working Groups of the EU Commission during review and implementation of Directive 2010/63/EU.
He was Convenor of a joint working group of FELASA/ESLAV/ECLAM providing guidance on assessment and reporting of severity of animals used in scientific procedures and has delivered severity assessment workshops across Europe.

David Smith PhD, CBiol, MRSB, MPhil, FBTS, EUROTOX Registered Toxicologistx

Professor Adrian Smith is Secretary to the Norwegian 3Rs platform Norecopa (https://norecopa.no)

Adrian is a British veterinarian who graduated from Cambridge University in 1979. After a year in mixed practice in the UK he emigrated to Norway where he has lived since. For much of this time he has been employed by the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, where he defended his doctoral thesis within the reproductive physiology of seasonal breeders. He held the Chair in Laboratory Animal Science from 1988 and was an active ECLAM diplomate until he left the School in 2011. He was heavily involved in the work of introducing mandatory training in laboratory animal science in Norway, and has arranged over 50 courses for all personnel categories. During this period he was also a member of the National Animal Research Authority which oversaw all animal research in Norway, and served on the committee which created the curriculum for the Veterinary Nurse program in Norway. He has been the Secretary of Norway’s consensus-platform for the 3Rs, Norecopa (https://norecopa.no) since it was established in 2007. He has had a special interest in 3R resources for many years and has co-authored several databases in this area which are now incorporated in the Norecopa website. He is a Board Member of the Danish 3R centre and a member of the National Committee for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes in Denmark. He travels widely and presents at international meetings. He is lead author of the PREPARE guidelines for planning animal experiments.

Recent publications:

Smith AJ (2020): Guidelines for planning and conducting high-quality research and testing on animals. Laboratory Animal Research 36, 21.  https://doi.org/10.1186/s42826-020-00054-0

Smith AJ & Lilley E (2019): The Role of the Three Rs in Improving the Planning and Reproducibility of Animal Experiments. Animals 9(11), 975; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9110975

Knudsen LE, Smith A, Törnqvist E, Forsby A & Tähti H (2018): Nordic Symposium on “Toxicology and  Pharmacology  without Animal  Experiments – will it be possible in the next 10 years?” Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology, https://doi.org/10.1111/bcpt.13193

Smith AJ, Clutton RE, Lilley E, Hansen KEA & Brattelid T (2017): PREPARE: Guidelines for Planning Animal Research and Testing. Laboratory Animals, 52(2): 135-141. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0023677217724823

Barney R, Beatham S, Carter S, Clubb R, Garrod K, Gale M, Gomm M, Knight K,  Lane J,  Mathews F, Pimlott P, Smith A, Wilson R, Weyer U, Hawkins P (2017): Report of a RSPCA/APHA meeting on the welfare of wild animals used in research. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(1): 13-25

Smith AJ & Hawkins PH (2016): Good Science, Good Sense and Good Sensibilities: The Three Ss of Carol Newton. Animals, 6, 70. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/6/11/70

Smith AJ (2015): Have the 3Rs and alternatives been effectively explored? Acta Laboratorium Animalis Scientia Sinica, 23(6): 656-664

Smith, AJ (2015): How can standardised reporting of animal research advance the 3Rs? Acta Laboratorium Animalis Scientia Sinica, 23(5): 543-550

Dewi S, Aune T, Bunæs JAA, Smith AJ & Larsen S (2014): The development of response surface pathway design to reduce animal numbers in toxicity studies. BMC Pharmacol Toxicol, 15: 18. https://bmcpharmacoltoxicol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2050-6511-15-18

Hawkins P, Clutton RE, Dennison N, Guesgen Mirjam, Leach M, Sharpe F, Simmons H, Smith AJ, Webster J, Weyer U (2014): Report of an RSPCA/AHVLA meeting on the welfare of agricultural animals in research: cattle, goats, pigs and sheep. Animal Technology and Welfare, 13(1): 43-56

Viola Galligioni is Chief Technical Officer I at the Comparative Medicine Unit, Trinity College Dublin (TCD, Ireland). She is acting as TCD Animal Care and Welfare Officer and Information Officer. Dr Galligioni graduated as veterinarian and did her PhD in viral diseases in animals at the University of Bologna (Italy). After the post-doctoral research, she has managed the Model Organism Facility at the Center for Integrative Biology (CIBIO, University of Trento, Italy) and the Animal Center at the International Clinical Research Center (FNUSA-ICRC, Brno, Czech Republic), before moving to Dublin in 2017.
Viola has experience with a variety of lab animal species (mice, rats, rabbits, zebrafish, Nothobranchius, Xenopus), including collaboration on cephalopods (Dr Fiorito's lab).
Dr Galligioni is currently Board member of the European Society of Laboratory Animal Veterinarians.

Fernando Á. Fernández-Álvarez developed his PhD Thesis on several poorly-understood onto-phylogenetic aspects of the natural history of flying squids, such as the sperm transmission between sexes, the morphology of paralarvae, the first diet of early paralarvae and their cryptic biodiversity. Among other studies, he studied live embryos and paralarvae of several species of cephalopods obtained by in vitro fertilization or naturally spawned, both in the wild or in aquaria.

Dr. Marta Solé
Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB) of the Technical University of Catalonia, BarcelonaTech. She worked in the industrial hatchery production of cephalopods in private companies (ECOMAR S.L.) and monitoring the impact of the traditional fishing and trawling in cephalopod stocks (Institute of Marine Science (ICM) – CSIC. At LAB, she studies the effects of artificial sound sources and noise pollution on invertebrates (Cephalopods, Molluscs, Gastropods, Cnidarians, Crustaceans) and fish through Electronic Microscopy and Proteomic techniques.

Currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, David Edelman has conducted research in a wide range of areas, including mechanisms of transcriptional gene regulation, the relationship between mitochondrial transport and brain activity, and visual perception and working memory in the octopus, among others. Edelman’s exploration of the neural basis of consciousness over the past 15 years has reinforced his view that this most complex of brain faculties has an ancient evolutionary history rooted in the rise of distance vision during the Cambrian Period.

Before his current research appointment at Dartmouth, Edelman held teaching appointments at the University of California, San Diego (2015-2017), University of San Diego (2015), was a professor of neuroscience at Bennington College (2012-2014), an Associate Fellow in Experimental Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in San Diego (2008-2012) and an Assistant Professor of Neurobiology at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in La Jolla (2011-2012).

After earning his PhD in paleoanthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, Edelman completed postdoctoral fellowships in molecular and cellular biology in 2001 (TSRI) and neuroscience in 2006 (NSI).

Antonella Iuliano is currently a Senior Statistician of the Bioinformatics Core at Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM), Pozzuoli, Italy. As responsible for the analysis of statistical data, she supports the research activity of the Institute in the study of a wide range of problems in the context of genomic and transcriptomic using specific computational statistical methods. She has completed her PhD in Mathematics at Department of Mathematics in 2012, University of Salerno, Italy, and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at IAC-CNR from 2013 to 2018, where she has carried out a research activity mainly focused on Applied Statistics and Computational Biology. Specifically, her research interests have been the development and use of high-dimensional statistical methods for the analysis and integration of multi-omics cancer survival data in biological and medical fields. Moreover, she started a collaboration with the Artificial Intelligence Group at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, UK, where she made various periods as a visiting researcher from 2014 to 2017 and a postdoctoral research contract, publishing results in several conferences and journals and working to various international research projects.

Marco Signore is a palaeontologist and science communicator with 30 years of experience both in field work and science communication and popularisation. He is currently working as communication technician at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, also designing and implementing the new Darwin-Dohrn Museum (opening in 2021), and helping with the concept design and communication plans of the new Aquarium (opening in late 2020). He also teaches presentation techniques and science communication for the Open University at the SZN. He authored several popular books on dinosaurs, described the first Italian dinosaur, and currently writes as a columnist in one of the foremost Italian science magazines (Sapere Scienza).

He draws a lot from his other committments (musical performer, musician, painter, RPGs and Boardgame expert and writer, former archaeologist and weapons expert, and author) to design and implement new dissemination, communication and popularisation ways and mechanics both in museology and in the field. He also works with citizen science projects, having just published, together with a team from SZN, a new app to report and track sharks and rays in the Mediterranean Sea.

Oleg Simakov studied Biology and obtained Diploma degree at the University of Heidelberg, conducting his research in the group of Daniel Rokhsar at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2013 he obtained his PhD working in the group of Detlev Arendt at EMBL Heidelberg. The work was conducted as a part of EMBL International PhD Programme with University of Konstanz, Germany, as a host University.
In 2013 he worked as a research assistant in the group of Thomas Holstein, University of Heidelberg, followed by a postdoctoral appointment at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Molecular Genetics Unit (led by Sydney Brenner and Daniel Rokhsar).
Since 2017 he is a tenure-track group leader at the University of Vienna.

Roger Villanueva is a scientist who works at the Institut de Ciencies del Mar (CSIC), has more than 25 years of experience working with cephalopod biology, including cultivation techniques and particularly on early development stages such as embryos and paralarvae