Fitxa persona

Jorge completed his MSc in Chemistry at the University of Valencia, undertaking his last academic year at the University of Salford (United Kingdom) in 2005. Then, he began his PhD in Chemical Sciences at the University of Valencia under the supervision of Prof. García-España in Supramolecular & Bioinorganic Chemistry. He combined his PhD with a technician position at Torres Film Plastic. In 2008, he secured a FPU (University Professor Training) grant of the Spanish Science Ministry and focused in his PhD until obtain the qualification of Summa cum Laude in February 2013. He developed polyamine-based molecules capable to tightly bind zinc, copper and manganese as antioxidant mimic agents and nucleic acid drugs. During his PhD, he spent several periods in the groups of Dr. Ivo Piantanida (Ruder Boskovic Institut, Croatia), Prof. Fernando Pina (New University of Lisbon, Portugal) and Prof. Philip A. Gale (University of Southampton, United Kingdom) where he complemented his background skills in Supramolecular Chemistry with different techniques and topics.

From 2013-2015, he carried out two post-docs in Prof. Kristin Bowman-James’s group in the University of Kansas (USA) and Dr. Marie-Paule Teulade-Fichou´s group in Institute Curie (France). He studied anion encapsulation in macrocycles and cryptands and developed novel molecules to target unusual DNA/RNA structures such as hairpins, mismatches, triplexes or G-quadruplexes.

In April 2015, he moved to the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London (United Kingdom) as a Newton Fellow of the Royal Society and British Academy associated with Prof. Ramón Vilar´s team. He developed novel tools to visualise G-quadruplexes in cells by using cutting-edge microscopy and metal complexes as efficient anticancer drugs. At the end of 2017, he sought for new challenges and complete his expertise in the nucleic acid field by enrolling the European Institute of Chemistry and Biology (France) associated in the teams of Dr. Valerie Gabelica and Dr. Jean-Louis Mergny as IdEx Fellow. He investigated the application of fluorescent molecular probes to detect and visualise G-quadruplexes in live cells.

In 2019, he obtained a Distinguished Researcher position back in the University of Valencia at the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol) through the GenT program of the Valencian Government. His research interests cover the design and preparation of small molecules to target non-canonical nucleic acid structures, the development of tools to visualise these structures in cells, the application of inorganic complexes to study biological processes and the biotechnological applications of nucleic acid super-structures.