Prof. Alvaro SOMOZA

Álvaro Somoza obtained his Ph.D. at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in the group of Prof. Carmen Carreño. Then, he joined the group of Prof. Eric T. Kool at Stanford University, working on the preparation of modified ribonucleosides to study the role of hydrogen bonding interactions between RNA strands in RNA interference. Later on, he joined the group of Prof. Ramón Eritja at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona, studying the interaction of hydrophobic moieties in RNA derivatives with protein complexes involved in RNA interference. In 2009 he joined IMDEA Nanociencia and in 2014 was promoted to Research Professor.

Dr. Mercedes LECEA

Mercedes Lecea obtained her Ph.D. at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Université de Strasbourg under the guidance of Prof. M. Carmen Carreño and Prof. Françoise Colobert, her work was focused on the total synthesis of natural products. Then, she joined Abengoa Research, where her research was focused on the valorization biopolymers present on lignocellulosic residues. In 2017 she joined Imdea Nanociencia as a Postdoctoral researcher.

Zulay PARDO-BOTERO

Zulay D. Pardo-Botero obtained her Ph.D. at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid under the guidance of Prof. Antonio Herrera Fernández and Roberto Martínez-Álvarez. She worked on the developed and optimization of Ultrafast NMR pulse sequences, to monitor organic reactions in real time, providing reaction mechanisms. In 2016 she joined IMDEA Nanoscience as a research staff, where perform several roles. She is responsible of the NMR spectroscopy laboratory, in charge of the implementation of Nano-materials Caracterization Laboratory under GLP guidance and involved in the synthesis and characterization of connectors for nanoparticles functionalization in the NanoBiotecnology Research Group of Prof. Álvaro Somoza.

Ana Belén LATORRE

Ana Latorre studied Biology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where she also obtained her master degree in Genetics a Cellular Biology. Her work was focused on the development of different nanostructures functionalized with drugs and nucleic acids for the treatment of breast cancer and uveal melanoma.

Currently, she is carrying out her PhD at IMDEA Nanociencia under the supervision of Dr. Álvaro Somoza.

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Paula Milán Rois obtained her degree at the “Universidad Autónoma de Madrid”. She´s worked with Magdalena Cañete in the antineoplastic therapy based on the combination of a traditional chemotherapeutic and a photodynamic drug; to internalize this treatment silica nanoparticles were used.

Currently she is carrying out her PhD at IMDEA Nanociencia under the supervision of Dr. Álvaro Somoza

Eduardo GARCÍA

Nuria Lafuente Gómez

Nuria Lafuente Gómez obtained her degree in Pharmacy with honors at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. With a collaboration scholarship in the Chemistry in Pharmaceutical Sciences Department, she worked under the guidance of Dr. Victoria Cabañas and Dr. Juan Luis Paris in the development of ceramic-hydrogel scaffolds with mesoporous silica nanoparticles loaded with antibiotics to treat infections in bone prosthetics.

Currently, she is carrying out her PhD at IMDEA Nanociencia under the supervision of Dr. Álvaro Somoza.

Ciro Rodríguez

Ciro Rodríguez studied Chemistry at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where he also obtained his master degree in Organic Chemistry under the guidance of Prof. M. Ribagorda , his work was focused on 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions between 2,5-diaryltetrazoles and quinones for the synthesis of fluorescent glycosylated pyrazoloquinones .

Currently he started his PhD in Organic Chemistry at IMDEA Nanociencia under the supervision of Dr. Álvaro Somoza. 

Interest facts:  He is an enthusiast person with an intellectual pursuit (huge geek) and likes games (mainly videogames and board games).

Demian Pardo

Catarina Coutinho

Catarina was born in Lisbon (Portugal) in 1994. In 2012 she moved from Braga (Portugal) to Porto (Portugal) to enroll the Integrated Master in Bioengineering at the University of Porto. In 2015 she conducted a training period in REQUIMTE Research Lab (Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto), in the group of Dr. Maria Rangel, which involved the use of pyridinone‑dansyl complexes as sensors for metal ions. In 2016 she conducted a 5 month internship at IMDEA Nanociencia, in the group of Dr. Álvaro Somoza, where she developed nanobiosensors based on gold nanoparticles for the detection cancer‑related miRNAs. In 2017, Catarina started her Master Dissertation project at the Nanomedicines & Translational Drug Delivery group in i3S/INEB (Institute of Investigation and Innovation in Heath / Institute of Biomedical Engineering), University of Porto, supervised by Dr. José das Neves and Dr. Bruno Sarmento. There she developed functionalized polymeric nanoparticles for the topical delivery of anti-HIV microbicides. Catarina obtained her MSc Degree in Bioengineering – Molecular Biotechnology in October 2017 and after that she continued her work at the Nanomedicines & Translational Drug Delivery group. In March 2018, driven by her interest in inorganic nanostructures for diagnostics and therapy, she came back to IMDEA as a visiting student to continue her project on the development of miRNA nanobiosensors.

Claudia Artiaga

Sara De Bragança

Sara De Bragança obtained her bachelor’s degree in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology with a specialization in Bionanotecnology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). For her bachelor thesis she worked on the fabrication of electrospun piezoelectric nanofiber scaffolds for tissue engineering at the Biosensors Group at the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona IMB-CNM (CSIC). Currently, she is studying for a master’s degree in Condensed Matter Physics and Biological Systems with a specialization in Biophysics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM).