Fitxa persona

I. Tuñón got the degree in Chemistry in June 1989, obtaining the second national award. His PhD Thesis was supervised by Prof. Silla in the Department of Physical Chemistry at the University of Valencia and was devoted to the development and use of continuum models for the study of chemical processes in solution. The PhD thesis was presented in 1993 deserving the extraordinary award recognition of the University. Afterwards he engaged as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Chimie Théorique leaded by Prof. JL Rivail in the University of Nancy (France) with a fellowship of the Spanish Ministry of Education. The research work was devoted to the development of one of the first computational codes for hybrid QM/MM simulations. He came back to the University of Valencia with a reincorporation postdoctoral contract, obtaining the position of Profesor Titular in 2000 and that of Catedrático in 2010. The scientific work carried out in the research unit leaded by I. Tuñón has been focused on the development of theories and methodologies for the study of chemical reactions in biological environments using QM/MM methods. The work included the development of techniques for the exploration of potential energy surfaces and for the calculation of free energies and other contributions to the reaction rate constant. These methodologies have been applied to reactions in solution and enzymatic processes, showing the role of electrostatic fields in catalysis. The research unit of I. Tuñón (www.tunonlab.com) is nowadays a reference in the field of enzyme catalysis modelling as demonstrated by the publication of 225 scientific articles (including 1 in Nature Chem., 1 in Nature Commun., 30 in J. Am. Chem. Soc, 6 in Angewandte Chemie, 2 in Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci and 6 in Chemical Sciences). These articles have received until now more than 7100 cites, reaching a h-index of 47 (according to Scopus). Several articles have been recommended in the F1000Prime web (JACS, 140, 4327, 2018 and PNAS 114, 12390, 2017) and in Faculty Opinions (Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed. 60, 25933, 2021). I. Tuñón has been invited to give lectures in more than 60 international and national meetings and has been nominated visiting professor in the Université de Nancy (France), the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris, France) and Universidad de Talca (Chile). In 2008 Prof. Tuñón, together with coauthors, received the 'Expoquimia' research award and in 2022 the HPCwire Reader's Choice Award. He also co-edited a book of the Royal Society of Chemistry entitled 'Simulating Enzymes Reactivity' (ISBN 978-1-78262-429-5). I. Tuñón co-organized scientific conference (Isotopes 2007, Computational Symposium at XXXVII RSEQ Bienal 2019, 'DNA: Damage and Repair' 2019; Biological Chemistry meeting of the RSEQ 2023) and participated in the scientific committee of several of them (Isotopes, ESPA, WATOC, QUITEL series). I.Tuñón has supervised 15 PhD students, including two thesis co-supervised in the Universidad de Talca (Chile). 12 of these students have continued a scientific career in Universities or Research Centers (Universidad de Valencia, Universidad Jaume I, University of Bristol, Universidad de Talca y de Concepción in Chile, IRB in Barcelona), one is the responsible of the Computational Center at the Universidad de Valencia, one works for a company devoted to computational simulations and one is a science teacher at secondary school. I.Tuñón also actively participates in the Erasmus Mundus Master in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling, being the head at the Universidad de Valencia.