Program

Bruno Silva received his PhD degree in Chemistry in 2009 from the University of Porto, Portugal, with an emphasis on the topics of Physical Chemistry, Soft Matter and Colloidal Science. He focused on the phase behavior and nanostructure of self-assembled surfactant systems. In 2010, he received the prestigious Marie Curie fellowship to perform his postdoctoral research at the University of California Santa Barbara, USA, and Lund University, Sweden. During his postdoc, he worked on the structural control of cationic liposome-DNA nanoparticles (also known as CL-DNAs or lipoplexes) for gene therapeutics and on the development of microfluidic devices with in-situ small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) for studies of soft matter under flow and out-of-equilibrium conditions.
From 2015 until 2022, he led a research team at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) in Soft Matter for Gene Therapeutics, with emphasis on the development of new approaches to assemble and tailor soft self-assembled nanoparticles for DNA delivery, and development of new methodologies to characterize them, with emphasis on Fluorescence Cross- Correlation Spectroscopy (FCCS). 
In January 2023 he joined Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, as a junior group leader at the Centre for X-ray analytics, in a joint appointment also with the Biointerfaces and Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles laboratories. Besides a strong focus in the current research activities of these laboratories, he aims to develop new concepts, know-how and insights for new generation nonviral gene therapeutics, using analytical methodologies based on SAXS (and beyond), as well as formulation and soft matter science, as the main tools.
Bruno is a member of the American, Swiss and Portuguese Chemical Societies and Controlled Release Society. His work has been published in more than 36 journal papers. 

María Blanco-Prieto received her Pharmacy Degree from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), followed by a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Paris-Sud (France) under the supervision of Professor Patrick Couvreur. She completed a post-doctoral training at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, (Switzerland) and then joined the University of Navarra where presently she is Full Professor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology. She is the author of more than 160 research papers and book chapters with more than 8770 cites (H-index 52), 6 editorials, 5 patents and over 215 communications at scientific conferences, many of them as invited speaker. She is/was responsible of more than 35 competitive research projects and expert for the European Commission for nanomedicines. Her research in drug delivery has won me numerous awards. 

She is a member of the National Academy of Pharmacy of France - one of the most prestigious entities in the world in her field - and serves as vice-president (President from January 2023) of the Executive Committee of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Scientists (EUFEPS) and President of SEFIG (The Spanish Society of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology). Recently she was elected Member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows (2021) and Member of Academia Europaea (2022).

Oenologist of the Faculty of Pharmacy of Montpellier and Doctor of the University of Montpellier 1, Pierre-Louis Teissedre is full Professor at the ISVV of the University of Bordeaux since 2005 and heads the Laboratory of Applied Chemistry at the faculty of Bordeaux Oenology. Since 2010 he is responsible of the Oenologist National Diploma at the ISVV of the University of Bordeaux. He is also director of the Oenoviti International network made up of 40 partners universities in the field of wine and viticulture and 20 associated industrial partners. He is coordinator of several EU projects Oenobio (organic vines and wines), as well as vWISE (Climate changes innovations for vines and wines) and partner in Vitaglobal program. Member of UOEF (Union des Oenologues de France) since 1989, Prof. Teissedre is also rector of the French Oenologists Union since 2013 and was elected 1st Vice President of UOEF in 2019 and Vice Chair of UIOE (International Union of Oenologists) in 2021.

He is specialized in research areas of phenolic compounds in grapes and wine: qualitative, sensory and physiological aspects, the chemical analysis of grapes and wine, the qualitative improvement of wines during winemaking and ageing, food safety and health in the wine sciences. He has developed numerous scientific collaborations at the academic and industrial level. He is the author of more than 300 publications and communications in international peer-reviewed journals, 30 books and book chapters and is a co-inventor of 13 patents and extensions.

Justin Siegel is an Associate Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine, at UC Davis in the Genome Center. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from UC Davis in 2005 and his Ph.D. in Biomolecular Structure and Design from the University of Washington in 2011, after which he returned to UC Davis to begin his research lab. His scientific focus in the design and discovery of enzymes to improve human and planetary wellbeing. Through strong industrial and cross-disciplinary collaborations Dr. Siegel has engineered enzymes for a wide range of applications, including therapeutics development, natural product production, enhancing nutrient bioavailability, and fuel or chemical production. Dr. Siegel is co-inventor on >100 global patents and has >50 publications, as well as being a founding member of nine companies (Bio Architecture Labs, PvP Biologics, Digestiva, Peak B, New Syn, SFS Advisors, Barnstorm Foundry, PrismBio, Vinzymes), five consortiums (Innovation Institute for Food & Health, Rosetta Commons Board, FoodShot Global, D2D Cure, AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems).

Rui holds a PhD in chemistry from the university of Durham (UK, 2013) where he focused on  “Studies of electron transfer on self assembled monolayers and bilayer lipid membranes”. Currently he is a research fellow in the Food Quality and Safety Group at INL. Previously he performed postdoctoral work at iNANO (Aarhus University, Denmark), INL (Portugal) and the A-Sense Lab (University of Antwerp, Belgium). In 2018 he was awarded an individual Marie Curie fellowship to develop a multiplex photoelectrochemical biosensor to detect microRNAs associated with prostate cancer. This work was done in collaboration with the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto.

Rui has expertise in the fields of electrochemistry and biosensor development as well as in surface functionalisation and characterisation. His research interests are in the development of (bio)sensors for the detection of biomarkers that can increase the quality of life of patients and the general population, with a particular focus on DNA based biosensors (genosensors).

María Gamella holds a PhD in chemistry by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid with the thesis “Sistemas (bio)sensores para la monitorización de parámetros químicos asociados a la calidad y seguridad alimentaria” (2010). She has developed postdoctoral work at Clarkson University (USA) and at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). During her postdoctoral years she has had the opportunity to work on the development of biofuel cells and electrochemical biosensors.

Currently, Maria Gamella works as Assistant Professor at the Analytical Chemistry Department of the Chemistry Faculty of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid where she belongs to the “Electroanalysis and Electrochemical (Bio) sensors” research group. Her research interests focus on the development of electroanalytical bioplatforms (immuno- and genosensors) with potential for multi-omics determinations in clinical and food safety.

Prof. Tiago Outeiro graduated in Biochemistry at the University of Porto and was an Erasmus student at the University of Leeds in the UK. Prof. Outeiro did his PhD thesis at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical research – MIT and worked as a Research Scientist at FoldRx Pharmaceuticals as a Research Scientist and Consultant. Prof. Outeiro was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Neurology of the Massachusetts General Hospital – Harvard Medical School where he focused on the study of Neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. Prof. Outeiro directed the Cell and Molecular Neuroscience Unit at IMM, Lisbon, from 2007 to 2014, and is currently Full Professor and the Director of the Department of Experimental Neurodegeneration at the University Medical Center Goettingen, in Germany. Prof. Outeiro holds a joint Professor position at Newcastle University in the UK. Prof. Outeiro has authored >270 research articles in international journals and participates in various international boards and in collaborative projects with the aim of identifying the molecular basis of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He has been awarded multiple prizes and grants in Germany, from the European Union, and from other international funding agencies.

M. Matilde Marques holds BSc and PhD degrees in chemical engineering and a Habilitation degree (D.Sc.) in chemistry from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal. She conducted postdoctoral work in chemical carcinogenesis at the FDA National Center for Toxicological Research, USA, and is currently a full professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of IST, where she teaches organic and medicinal chemistry. She coordinated the MSc and PhD Chemistry Programs at IST until December 2016 and is vice-chair of IST’s Scientific Council (2017-present).

Her research focuses on the mechanisms of toxicity induced by environmental (e.g., aromatic amines, acrylamide) and therapeutic (e.g., antiestrogens, anti-HIV drugs) xenobiotics, on the development/validation of analytical methodologies for the detection and quantitation of biomarkers of exposure to toxic agents, with emphasis on MS-based methodologies, and on the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of potential therapeutic agents.

She is a Member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the IUPAC Subcommittee on Toxicology and Risk Assessment. She serves on the Editorial Board for Pharmaceuticals, has served several terms on the Editorial Advisory Board for Chemical Research in Toxicology, and has been a Member of multiple working groups for the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Belén Vaz obtained her PhD in Chemistry from Universidade de Vigo in 2004 on the “Stereoselective Total Synthesis of Carotenoids”. Then, she performed a postdoctoral stay in the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology at Dortmund (Germany), joining the group of Prof. Luc Brunsveld and working on the modulation of protein-protein interactions. In 2007, she joined the Department of Organic Chemistry at Universidade de Vigo where she earned a 5-year grant as “Isidro Parga Pondal”, followed by a position as Distinguished Researcher in the same institution. Currently, she holds a position as Associate Professor. Her research interests focus on the synthesis of natural products and the design and synthesis of bioactive compounds. She is also interested in the structural determination of natural marine pigments and the functionalization of nanostructured materials.