I have risen approximately 1.5M€ in funding, licensed 1 patent and have co-authored more than 45 international publications with an average IF of 9 and 36.80 average citations. Around 2 years ago, I started forming my own research group, which is now formed by 6 people: 2 PostDoc (1 TecnioSpring, 1 Juan de la Cierva), 2 PhD students, 1 visitor bachelor student, and 1 visitor postdoc. My research activities have been dedicated to the design, engineering and test in relevant conditions of functional nanomaterials for biomedicine. Their uses depend on their physical and chemical properties: • for cell tracking towards quantifying and discriminating the adhesion behavior onto topographically different substrates relevant for tissue engineering • for photo-activation to remotely manipulate and control the release from drug delivery systems • for magnetic activation towards targeting drug delivery systems, as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging and for chemohyperthermia treatment of cancer cells • to study the toxicity derived by their composition and by their nanometric size and when possible, to develop strategies to reduce their toxicity. In the context of modern medicine, I have developed composite biomaterials presenting multiple functionalities. This is crucial to fabricate smart materials that are able to respond to specific internal/external stimuli and respond accordingly, e.g. sensing disease markers and releasing a controlled amount of drug. From a more fundamental point of view, my research has focused on correlating the physico-chemical properties of nanostructure materials (e.g., size, charge, physical properties, surface chemistry) with biological/cellular responses (e.g., uptake, migration, viability/toxicity, proliferation). The rationale is to anticipate cellular behavior towards the materials in order to control cell-materials interactions. The final goal is to rationally design the configuration of the material depending on the biomedical requirements to ensure performance.

Nanobiotechnology, Pharmaceutical Technology, Cell Biology