I am leading since 2009 the research group on “Human host defense RNases” at the Dpt. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Following 5 years of postdoctoral studies (1 at the National Institutes of Health and 4 at the University of Bath), I was awarded in 2002 with a Ramon y Cajal senior researcher contract and I am currently working as an Associate Professor at the UAB (full professorship accredited AQU2016 and position promoted to Full professorship: UAB 26/10/2022). I have been awarded 9 public research Grants as Principal Investigator and have published more than 90 papers in international peer-review journals. My main research interest focuses on the mechanism of action of human host defense RNases, as lead proteins for the design of novel therapies.

Since my PhD I have contributed to the understanding of the mechanism of action of host ribonucleases: first identification of a substrate binding site, pioneer in the development of novel high yield expression systems for recombinant RNases’ production, first 3D crystal structures and screening methodologies for the elucidation of their antimicrobial mechanism of action.

I was first to propose RNases as antimicrobial proteins and contributed to more than 50% of publications using the term antimicrobial RNases. My group was also first in the identification of antimicrobial peptides derived from RNases. Recently we have established in our laboratory all the methodology to analyse the RNases action on small RNA and have reported the selectivity of human RNase2 on tRNAs and the protein involvement in the host antiviral activity against single stranded RNA viruses.

During the past 20 years I have leaded several topic issues on the structural functional properties of RNases and written several reviews to introduce new concepts in that field. Based on the structure-function knowledge of host RNases I am currently working on the design of alternative antimicrobial agents to fight bacterial resistance and have being awarded 3 transfer of technology projects.

During my career thanks to stages abroad and collaborative works, I contributed to introduce to our laboratory at the UAB: molecular biology techniques for production of recombinant RNases, X-ray crystallography and cellular infection models.

I am also actively involved as an associate editor of two first quartile journals and act as a regular reviewer of research articles and participate in national and international evaluation agencies.

Research work has been carried out in parallel with teaching, students supervising and managing tasks. I have been coordinator of the Master program and the PhD doctoral studies on Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicines, and I am currently in charge of a Master course on Structural Biology and a 4^th Grade course in Advanced Structural Analysis Methodologies in the UAB Grade of Biochemistry.

Indicators of scientific production:

H index=41; hi10: 68; 4107 citations (Google Scholar).

93 indexed references (Web of Science): 17% as first author and 51% as corresponding author; 90% as corresponding during the last 10 years. Average citations/year, last 5 years: 288. WoS Researcher ID: B-9038-2012.

2 Patents.

Mentoring:

Supervision of 12 PhD Thesis: 9 defended and 3 ongoing; supervision of 4 external PhD works; 17 master works and 1 Final Grade Work per year; and supervision of 5 Postdoctoral researchers.

Author of 33 structures deposited at the Protein Data Bank and 2 Transcriptomic data.

Research and Teaching recognition 6 years- Terms (sexenios):

4 Research Terms (Last 2012-2017); 4 National Teaching Terms (Last 2012-2017) and 3 Autonomic Teaching Terms (Last 2012-2017)

Full Professorship Accreditation Agència Qualitat Universitària AQU 2016

Current Position Promoted to Full Professorship by Merit Evaluation (26/10/2022)