Prof. Ivan Atanassov received his Master's degree (1987) from the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and PhD (1994) and DSc (2012) in Genetics from the AgroBioInstitute, Agricultural Academy, Bulgaria. From 2013 he has served as professor and from 2017 as director of AgroBioInstitute. During his career, Prof. Atanassov was postdoc in several laboratories including VUB Belgium, JTI Japan, ENS Lyon France, ICGEB India ,and the University of Manchester UK, and carried out research in different fields of plan biotechnology, molecular biology, and genetics, as well as microbiology and biodiversity studies. An essential part of Prof. Atanassov's research and scientific interests include genomics and metabolomics of medicinal and aromatic plants /MAP/, incl. oil bearing rosa and lavender, as well as characterization and valorization of by-products and wastes from MAP processing and essential oil extraction. He has over 100 publications in scientific journals and is a member of the board of national and international committees.