Aitziber L. Cortajarena
CIC biomaGUNE
BIO
Dr. Aitziber L. Cortajarena earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Universidad del País Vasco in 2002 working with Dr. Helena Ostolaza and Dr. Félix M. Goñi. Then, she worked on protein design in the group of Dr. Lynne Regan at Yale University, USA, as a Postdoctoral Fellow and as an Associate Research Scientist. She joined IMDEA Nanociencia in 2010 and started her independent research in nanobiotechnology. In 2016, she joined CIC biomaGUNE as Ikerbasque Research Professor. Currently, she leads the Biomolecular Nanotechnology group and is Scientific Vice-Director at CIC biomaGUNE.
Her research focuses on protein engineering toward the generation of functional nanostructures and bioinspired materials for applications in technology and biomedicine.
Gaskon Ibarretxe
UPV/EHU
BIO
I am Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Histology of the UPV/EHU. I completed my doctoral thesis in 2004. Afterwards, I made a postdoctoral stay at the Institut François Magendie in the University of Bordeaux (Bordeaux, France). By 2008 I joined the research group “Signaling lab” led by Prof. Fernando Unda. My main research area is the study of dental pulp stem cells for tissue engineering and regeneration therapies.
As part of my research activity I have so far published 32 articles in indexed journals, mostly in the first and second quartile of my fields of knowledge in JCR, including principal and/or correspondence authorship contributions in journals such as Journal of Neuroscience, European Cells and Materials, Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry, Frontiers in Physiology, Cells, Stem Cells International, Journal of Cellular Physiology, Biomedicines, Biology, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Glia, Ageing Research Reviews, and Cell and Tissue Research. To date, my published articles accumulate an H index of 16 (i10 of 19), and received almost one thousand citations. I have also supervised five doctoral theses, all of them graded cum laude.
I have participated in multiple research projects granted by competitive calls, at University, Regional, State, and European level, being principal investigator in several of them. I have also led research contracts with external biotech/medical companies. I belong to the editorial board of the Spanish indexed journal Medicina Oral Medicina Patología Oral y Cirugía Bucal. I have also collaborated as Guest Editor in indexed journals such as Biology and Bioengineering. I also collaborate regularly as an external reviewer of research projects for external agencies such as the Polish National Science Center (NCN) and the European Science Foundation (ESF) for project evaluation at European level. Additionally, I collaborate on a regular basis with multiple scientific journals for the peer-reviewing of articles.
During my career at UPV/EHU I have combined my research activity with other teaching and academic management duties, where I highlight two consecutive evaluations with the rank of “Excellence” by the Docentiaz program (V. and X. calls). I held a position as Vice-Dean of Students and Mobility in the Faculty of Medicine and Nursing (years 2017-2019).
Ignacio Torres Aleman
Achucarro
BIO
Ignacio Torres Aleman received a PhD in biology from the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain (1982). From 1981 to 1984 he worked with Dr AV Schally (Nobel Prize in 1980) at Tulane University (New Orleans, USA) and from 1987 to 1989 at Yale University with Prof F Naftolin. In late 1989 he started his own lab at the Cajal Institute in Madrid (Spain) where he became Research Professor in 2003 and its director from 2009 to 2017. He recently moved to Achucarro Basque Center of Neuroscience as an Ikerbasque Research Professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Insulin Peptides and the director of the center. His research interests include the role of insulin peptides in the brain and its impact on neurodegenerative diseases. He is the author of over 140 publications in peer-reviewed journal and has delivered more than 150 conferences in over 30 different countries.
Dra. Nuria Montserrat
IBEC
BIO
became interested in organ regeneration and stem cells during her master and European PhD training under the supervision of Dr. Joaquim Gutiérrez and Dr. Isabel Navarro at the University of Barcelona. In 2007, she joined the Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona as a post-doctoral researcher. A year later, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Belmonte at the Center of Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona (CMRB) thanks to the support of a prestigious Spanish fellowship. After two years, she first co-authored how to reprogram cord blood stem cells for the first time. By that time Nuria also collaborated in projects aimed to characterize the genomic integrity of human induced pluripotent stem cells as well as their differentiation towards different lineages for applications in human disease modeling, which results were published in top journals.
Her expertise in the fields of somatic reprogramming and organ regeneration led her to be awarded with a prestigious European grant, ERC Starting Grant to start her own lab as a Junior group leader at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in 2014.
In 2015, Nuria received another renowned Spanish fellowship named Ramon y Cajal and since 2019 she is an ICREA Research Professor and Senior Group Leader at IBEC. During these years her findings in the field of Regenerative Medicine led to the derivation, for the first time, of cardiac grafts from human pluripotent stem cells and decellularized cardiac myocardium, the derivation of renal analogues with 3D bioprinting and the generation of of vascularized kidney organoids from human pluripotent stem cells
Upon COVID19 pandemic, Nuria co-led the development of a kidney organoid technology to model SARS-CoV-2 infections that allowed the identification of a therapeutic compound that nowadays is under clinical trial for COVID19 patients. She was awarded by the prestigious award the Constants and Vitals Prize for Best biomedical research publication in 2020.
Overall, from 2015, her work has attracted direct competitive funding from both Spanish and European institutions and her efforts have been recently awarded with the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Prize and the ERC Consolidator Grant to study the interplay between mechanobiology and metabolism during human kidney development and disease.
Nuria is also very committed to Science Communication and she participated in more than 300 outreach activities to promote research activities to the general public, with a particular focus to young girls and woman in science. Nuria has been elected Commissioner of the first and second editions of the City and Science Biennial of Barcelona in 2019 and 2021 which attracted more than 20.000 visitors.
F. Javier del Campo
BCMaterials
BIO
F. Javier del Campo (ORCID 0000-0002-3637-5782) graduated in Analytical Chemistry from Stratchlyde University (1998) and the University of the Basque Country (1999). His research over the past 15 years involved the miniaturisation of electrochemical sensors and biosensors for environmental and health applications, particularly in the area of point of care devices. These activities were carried out through the participation in multiple projects addressing the integration of electrochemical sensors and biosensors in flow systems, including lab on a chip devices combining silicon, glass, polymeric and different smart materials. Javier’s work also covers fabrication techniques, ranging from microfabrication to conventional processes such as milling, blade and laser cutting, thermoforming and replica moulding.
To date, Javier has co-authored 122 scientific publications (h=32), is co-inventor in 8 patents and has supervised 7 PhD theses.
Ander Izeta
Biodonostia
BIO
Licenciado en Biología por la Universidad de Navarra (1994) y Doctor en Ciencias (2000) por la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Desde 2010 lidera el Grupo de Ingeniería Tisular del IIS Biodonostia y desde 2016 es además profesor asociado en la Escuela de Ingeniería de Tecnun. Su investigación está centrada en la biología de las células madre adultas desde un punto de vista amplio y dirigido por la curiosidad. El grupo se centra actualmente en investigar la cicatrización de heridas cutáneas, la linfangiogénesis, diversos aspectos relacionados con la transmisión del impulso nervioso en el músculo esquelético, la afección de las células madre adultas y su microentorno por el envejecimiento tisular, y la generación de nuevas biotintas para desarrollos en ingeniería de tejidos. Tiene un índice h de 24 (WoS) a 31 (Google Scholar), y ha generado 33 publicaciones y tres patentes en los últimos 6 años. Desde 2019 es Presidente Electo de la Sociedad Española de Terapia Génica y Celular y coordina el Subgrupo de Trabajo RIS3 Euskadi en Medicina Regenerativa y Terapias Avanzadas.
Graciela Martínez
Biolan Microbiosensores
BIO
Graciela Martínez completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Oviedo in 2009 after specializing in Electrochemistry. She is actually leading the Electrochemistry Department of Biolan Health, the Health division of the company Biolan. Her work is focused on the fabrication and modification of electrodic surfaces with nanomaterials in order to develop new sensors and biosensors for clinical, agri-food or environmental fields.
Dra. Amaia Garcia Bilbao
Gaiker
BIO
Licenciada en Biología por la Universidad del País Vasco en 2002. Se incorpora a Gaiker en noviembre de 2004 con el objetivo de comenzar su tesis doctoral en cáncer colorrectal. En 2006 realiza una estancia en el California Pacific Medical Centre (San Francisco, CA) bajo la supervisión del Dr. Pierre-Yves Desprez. Allí realiza estudios de la proteína ID1 en líneas celulares de colon. Se doctora en 2008 en Biología también en la Universidad del País Vasco realizando estudios de perfiles de expresión génica. Posteriormente se especializa en estudios in vitro de seguridad de productos sanitarios, cosméticos y farmaceúticos, realizándolos si es necesario bajo certificado de Buenas Prácticas de Laboratorio. Las técnicas que ha utilizado durante su trayectoria investigadora incluyen microarrays de expresión, q-PCR, estudios de interacción proteica así como cultivos celulares y otros métodos alternativos in vitro. En la actualidad es Responsable de estudios de Seguridad.
Karla J. Merazzo
BCMaterials
BIO
Karla J. Merazzo has been working on research for more than 12 years, starting with basic research; but approaching over time technology transfer of the scientific results. She is a researcher in the area of magnetism, nanostructures, spintronics and magnetic sensors. She has a PhD and a master’s degree in Condensed Matter Physics and Nanotechnology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Instituto de Ciencias de Materiales de Madrid, CSIC. She has participated in 5 international stays, in over 7 international research projects, 24 scientific Indexed publications in international journals, participation in more than 40 international/ national conferences, 6 experiments at synchrotron facilities, and she has been part of scientific and evaluation committees, including in peer reviewer in scientific journals.
GORAN BIJELIC
TECNALIA
BIO
Holding a position of International Business Development Director in TECNALIA Research and Innovation, Spain, with responsibility over Tecnalia International R&D technological and commercialization activities and international offices. With academic background in Physical Chemistry at Faculty of Physical Chemistry, Belgrade and Surface Chemistry at KTH, Stockholm and with R&D career as Director of Tecnalia Serbia Ltd, Belgrade and Director of Biomaterials Business Area,Tecnalia, Spain. Having over 20 years of experience in R&D in fields of Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials with over 40 publications, 5 patents, creation of 3 innovation based SMEs. Currently participates in 7 Horizon EU projects, and in one of them acts as a project coordinator.
Ricardo Brito Pereira
BIO
Ricardo Brito Pereira received his master degree in Biomedical Engineering from Universidade do Minho, actually he is enrolled in a PhD program in Materials Engineering. Part of his master thesis work was developed in collaboration with an Italian biomedical company “Leonardino Srl”. After that, he was involved in the “Active bioreactor” project where he participated and won prizes in several development programs to accelerate new startups in the biomedical field. His research work allowed him to be an invited researcher at Precision diagnostic center in Boston University and work with Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation projects. Actually he has 12 scientific Indexed publications in international journals and participation in 15 international/national conferences.