Juan Luis Benedé Veiga, graduated in Chemistry from the University of Valencia (2010) and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Valencia (2016). He currently works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Valencia. He is a member of the GICAPC research group. His research areas focus on miniaturized sample preparation techniques and chromatographic separation techniques. In this field, he has participated in several research projects, has published more than 50 publications in journals in the area of ​​analytical chemistry, as well as in more than 50 communications at national and international conferences.

Gianni Gallello was awarded his PhD in 2014 by the University of Valencia (Spain). In his dissertation he developed innovative methodological proposals for the study of archaeological soil and human remains, employing novel sampling strategies, Rare Earth Elements (REE), major and trace element analysis and multivariate statistics. The capability to act consistently has helped to provide the support to present new methodological proposals for a set of heterogeneous and diachronic archaeological materials (from Prehistory). During the last 10 years his research activity has been focused on the chemical analysis of different archaeological materials, testing new methodological approaches to overcome some of the most significant problems facing the archaeological community in the sphere of ancient human activity fingerprinted in the soil, post-mortem bone contaminations, lithic material origins, the raw material origins of mortar, provenance of ceramics and identification of organic materials in ancient objects. Gianni has a background in analytical chemistry and a wide range of practical and analytical skills acquired working across the disciplines of Archaeology, Biology, Geology and Analytical Chemistry. Significant results from his PhD and subsequent postdoctoral research have been published in high impact journals and participates as PI or  research group member in several national and international projects.

Gallello has been a Marie Curie Research Fellow (2016-2018) at the University of York (UK) with the MATRIX project funded by the European Commission (Horizon 2020). The aim of this innovative project called MATRIX has been to establish a new interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary methodological approach for the identification of anthropogenic deposits in archaeological excavations through the analysis of REE in soil. In 2014 Gianni founded ArchaeChemis (www.uv.es/archaechemis) at the University of Valencia. ArchaeChemis was designed as a chemical analysis unit for research and technology transfer for research groups and non-academic organizations dedicated to the study of the past. Today Gianni is a distinguished researcher at the Department of Prehistory, Archeology and Ancient History (UVEG).

Coming from a background of analytical chemistry, my research has focused on developing vibrational spectroscopic techniques to address a wide range of bioanalytical problems spanning the clinical and biological fields. Clinical Spectroscopy is a multidisciplinary field that involves research in chemistry, optics, and statistics to provide applications in the biomedical context. I have been very lucky to work in different labs across Europe and Australia, including France (1.5 years), Germany (0.5 years), Australia (4.5 years) and Ireland (2 years). I have finally settled in the University of Valencia with a Ramon y Cajal grant, where I am establishing myself as an independent researcher.

 My contribution to the field of vibrational spectroscopy has advanced knowledge in 4 central themes:
i) Sample processing for IR analysis: Improving clinical spectroscopy methods by using sample pretreatment techniques. 
ii) Chemometrics and data fusion: Application of novel chemometric datamining algorithms. Development of methods for fusing data from different modalities, including infrared (IR) and Mass Spectrometry and the multimodal imaging of IR and Raman.
ii) Infrared and Raman micro- and nano- imaging. Images of cells and tissues using Raman and IR. Use of Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) coupled with IR and Tip Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS).
iv) Translational research. Development of methods for biofluid analysis, and most notably diagnosis of Malaria in developing countries and quantification of clinical parameters for bio-fluids at the hospital level and in the point-of-care context. Field trials in Thailand using portable instrumentation.

Scientific Output:  I have authored more than 60 journal articles and 2 chapters in indexed scientific journals: 55% as the first or corresponding author, 66% of the articles published in the first Quartile (Q1) of their respective field. These works have been cited 1200 times (Jan,2020); h-index is 23; [Google Scholar] and I obtained a granted US patent. As a PI, my projects have obtained more than 500K EUR in funding from institutions in Europe, Australia and Asia.

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After completing my Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry (2008-2013) and obtaining the Master's Degree in Experimental Techniques in Chemistry at the University of Valencia (2014), I joined the Perinatology Research Group at the Research Institute as a research technician. Sanitaria La Fe (Valencia). For 3.5 years, I dedicated myself to the development of analytical methods in neonatal research, specializing in the processing of biological samples, chemometric analysis and various instrumental techniques such as liquid chromatography, gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, vibrational spectroscopy, enzymatic techniques and immunoassay. All of this was carried out in a hospital setting, where I gained experience implementing analytical methods in both clinical practice and translational research.

After receiving a competitive PFIS grant (Carlos III Health Institute) in 2017, I completed the PhD in Chemistry in the same group (2017-2022), which included an international stay in the aptamers group of the LIMES-Institute (Bonn , Germany), where I worked on SELEX technology for the selection of aptamers with analytical applications. After obtaining the doctorate, I completed a two-year postdoctoral stay (2022-2023) in the Synthèse de lipides bioactifs group of the Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron (CNRS-Université de Montpellier, France), as part of a Margarita Salas Grant from the Ministry of Universities.

Since January 2024, I have enjoyed a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral contract (Ministry of Science and Innovation-AEI) in the Solinquiana group of the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the University of Valencia.

My current lines of research are:

• Analysis of potentially bioactive lipids, including peroxidation productsof polyunstarred fatty acids (oxylipins) and lipophenols, in novel oxidation and synthesis models using chemometric tools, LC-MS and vibrational spectroscopy. Detection and quantification of these compounds in biological samples (plants, algae and biofluids).
• Development of Point-of-Care methods for the analysis of minimally invasive clinical samples using vibrational spectroscopy (Raman and FTIR) and chemometric techniques.