Aitziber López Cortajarena
Jesus Martinez de la Fuente
Prof. Jesús Martínez de la Fuente (Barakaldo, 1975) created his own research group (BIONANOSURF Group) at the Univ of Zaragoza in 2007, becoming internationally recognized in nanomaterials and biofunctionalization. The multidisciplinary nature of the group facilitates research and development in numerous areas, including biosensors, gene therapy, magnetism, photochemistry, surface chemistry and molecular metal oxides, among others. He has extensive experience in the synthesis and characterization of novel nanomaterials and their biofunctionalization for the use and development of the next generation of nanobiosensors and nanotherapeutics. He has been a pioneer in the application of gold nanoparticles in gene therapy and he has developed a methodology for the use of gold nanoparticles functionalized with carbohydrates (glyconanoparticles) for the study of biological processes (embryogenesis, cancer, inflammation, etc.). Since 2014, he is Full Professor at the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragon-CSIC. He has been PI of research projects with a total budget of more than 7 M€. He has published more than 250 papers (h-index 63) and he is inventor of 7 patents. In 2010 he was awarded the Aragón Investiga prize "Young Researchers". In 2013 he was awarded by the Shanghai Administration with the 1000 Talent Plan program to be a visiting professor at the Jiao Tong University of Shanghai. He is co-founder of the Spanish Young Academy and Alumni of the Global Young Academy.
Ana Beloqui García
Dr. Ana Beloqui is an Assistant Professor and Research Associate from the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium), and group leader in the Advanced Drug Delivery and Biomaterials lab at the Louvain Drug Research Institute. Dr Beloqui’s main research interests are the investigation of the oral drug delivery route (especially focused on the oral delivery of biologics) and the interaction of the drug delivery system with the gastrointestinal epithelium. She has received multiple scholarships and has been awarded with a prestigious ERC Starting grant. Since December 2020, she serves as Assistant Editor for the Journal of Controlled Release.
Vicent Nebot
Vicent is the Chief Technology Officer of Curapath. He brings more than 15 years of experience in the field of nanomaterials and drug delivery systems in both industry and academic settings, having co-authored more than 40 publications (including articles, book chapters and patents) in the field, and been awarded several grants as co-PI. Before his time at Curapath, he was Research Collaborator at Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe (CIPF). Vicent is an expert in polypeptide-based systems, soft materials, supramolecular chemistry, and physico-chemical characterization with a special focus on CMC development of drug nanomedicines and their regulatory aspects. Vicent obtained his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry and Material Science, funded by Procter & Gamble, from Universidad Jaume I de Castelló in 2012. After a post-doctoral period of 3 years at Polymer Therapeutics Laboratory, headed by Dr. Maria J. Vicent, Vicent joined PTS as a researcher awardee of Torres Quevedo Spanish Ministry Program. He also participated in MIT Sloan School of Management’s Entrepreneurship Development Program.
J.C. Morales
Juan Carlos is Senior Staff Researcher at the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine López Neyra (CSIC), and is Founder and Scientific Advisor of Limnopharma, a start-up focused in the development of new therapeutics for ophthalmic diseases.
Juan Carlos studied Chemistry at Universidad de Alcalá, received his PhD in Chemistry (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) under the supervision of Prof. Soledad Penadés and did postdoctoral research with Prof. Eric T. Kool (University of Rochester and Stanford University) and with Prof. Ramón Eritja (IQAC, CSIC). Then, he moved to industry as Head of Chemistry at Puleva Biotech (2000-2006) and back to Academia to the Institute of Chemical Research (CSIC-Universidad de Sevilla, 2006-2014).
His independent research started in bioorganic and food chemistry topics, and is currently focused on the area of medicinal chemistry. Dr. Morales works on the design and synthesis of drugs based on phenolic natural products for the treatment of neurodegenerative and retinal degenerative diseases, and on DNA quadruplex ligands as anticancer and antiparasitic agents. He is author of more than 90 papers and inventor of 11 patents.
Óscar Millet
I am the group leader of the Precision Medicine and Metabolism laboratory of CIC bioGUNE. My research line focuses on the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to the study of biologically relevant proteins and enzymes, paying special attention to the delicate balance existing between protein stability and dynamics. Such knowledge has developed into the creation of a spin-off company, ATLAS Molecular Pharma based on a new pharmacological chaperone for the treatment of congenital erythropoietic porphyria, which is a repurposed drug and it has obtained the Orphan Drug Designation status. Additionally, I am also interested in the NMR-based metabolomics of biofluids for the diagnose of rare and prevalent diseases. I have been awarded the prize of the Real Sociedad Española de Química (2004), the Spanish NMR group prize (2020), the Elhuyar-Goldschmidt award of the Spanish & German Chemical Society (2022) and nominated Academic of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the Basque Country (2016). I am currently the president of the Spanish Chemical Biology group of the RSEQ.