Invited Speakers:

Dr. Paulo R. Bueno

Nanobionics Research Group,  São Paulo State University, Brazil

Professor Bueno is coordinator of the Nanobionics research group (www.nanobionics.pro.br) at São Paulo State University, UNESP. He published over 170 papers related to the applications or development of mainly electric and electrochemistry time-dependent (including also gravimetric and optical impedance) spectroscopic methods (h index 31, > 3600 citations and with an average citation of about 20 per article). His main scientific interest is focused on the fundamental aspects and technological applications involving electron charge transfer and transport as well as the charge storage occurring in molecular and biomolecular structures. Under his guidance Nanobionics group develops synthetic structures and surfaces that mimics molecular and biological structures to be used, for instance, in highly-relevant medical diagnostic devices. The Nanobionics group was responsible for the development of a totally new label-free diagnostic assay and electro analytical spectroscopic methodology supported on the use of the electrochemistry capacitance, a capacitance proportional to the electrochemical density of states (EDOS) that intrinsically exist in mesoscopic structures comprised of redox-active molecules attached over metallic probes and that are particularly named by Electrochemistry Capacitance Spectroscopy (ECS). The ECS-derived assays are able to detect target protein at femtomolar levels allowing the establishment of early detection assay platforms for clinically important targets that are better than those currently in use and are potentially cheap and useful in multiplexed and bedside like-diagnostics, technologies. Other relevant aspects of his groups’ activities are the synthesis of self-assembled redox-tagged peptides and its applications in redox capacitive biosensors. The advantages of constructing a peptide-based receptive surface containing electrochemical tags is that peptides can be easily manipulated and optimized to be applied directly in complex biological environments avoiding fouling and additionally antibodies/antigens can be substituted by peptide aptamers with equivalent affinity and specificity for the clinical target proteins. In the molecular design and surface engineering context the Nanobionics group is supported by computational chemistry expertise and tools such as molecular dynamics (MD) and density functional theory (DFT) based methods.

Professor Bueno acted as academic and researcher visitor in several European universities such as Universities of Valence and Jaume I (Spain), University of Paris (France) and University of Oxford (UK). Since 2015 he is member of American Chemical Society (ACS), member of International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), Research Fellow Director of the Royal Society (https://royalsociety.org/people/paulo-roberto-bueno-12682/) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). He is also co-found of the start-up company Oxford Impedance Diagnostics.

Dra. Pilar Marco Colás

Nanobiotechnology for Diagnostics Group IQAC-CSIC, CIBER-BBN

PhD in Pharmacy by the UB (1990). Postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis (Prof. B. D. Hammock, 1990-1993). Tenior Staff Scientist at CSIC in 1996 and since then, head of the Applied Molecular Receptors group (AMRg, nowadays Nanobiotechnology for Diagnostics group, Nb4D). In 2007 she got her position as Professor of Research of the CSIC. For almost five years (2006-2011), she was Head of the Chemical and Biomolecular Nanotechnology Department of the Advanced Chemical Research Institute of Catalonia (IQAC) of the CSIC. Nowadays, she is vicedirector of IQAC-CSIC Since year 2011, she is the Coordinator of the Nanomedicine Research Program of the Networking Research Center for Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN). Her research interests are focused on the investigation of new strategies and physical transducing principles to develop a new generation of bioanalytical multiplexed platforms for clinical diagnostics. In this context, she has been involved in a significant number of projects addressed to provide alternatives for the diagnostic of infectious and cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and the assessment of adverse drug reactions, therapeutic drug monitoring, environmental and food safety. She has been principal investigator of an important number of EU (12) and Spanish (34) projects, and contracts (10) with European and US companies. As a result of her research, she has been co-author of near 190 publications of international relevance and of several patents (10), some of them under exploitation. Moreover, she has been the director of 17 PhD theses.

Dra. Maria Manuela Marques Raposo

Universidade do Minho

Maria Manuela Marques Raposo is an Associate Professor of the Department of Chemistry/Centre of Chemistry at the University of Minho in Portugal.  She received a PhD in Sciences (Chemistry) from University of Minho in 1996. Her research interests include the design, synthesis and characterization of sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen π-conjugated heterocyclic compounds and heterocycle-based unnatural amino acids for several applications such as nonlinear optics: second harmonic generators (SHG) and two-photon absorption (TPA) chromophores, optical chemosensors; photochromic materials,  fluorescence probes and markers; organic light-emitting diodes (OLED´s), dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), and ligands for catalysis. In this context she has been involved in several funded projects as principal investigator as well as member of the team. She is author of more than 100 publications, author/co-author of 14 books/chapter books, 40 proceedings published on the ambit of international congresses and over 180 oral and poster communications in national and international congresses (h-index 28: May 2017; ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7996-1626 and Scopus Author ID: 7005684062). She supervised over than 30 students/investigators involved in doctoral and MSc theses and research projects. She belong to the editorial boards of American Journal of Optics and Photonics and Mediterranean Journal of Chemistry and is referee of more than thirty international journals. At the educational level, she participate in the creation of the PhD course in Applied Chemistry and since 2016 she is the Director of this course, member of the scientific committee of the Doctoral Course in Sciences (since November 2012), member of the Commission of Course of the Degree in Chemistry (since September of 2015) and was invited Professor in foreign universities (University of Metz, University of Lorraine).  She is also member of the Directive Committee of the Department of Chemistry since December 2015 and member of the Scientific Commission of the School of Sciences of the University of Minho since December 2015.

Dra. Claudia Caltagirone

Università degli studi di Cagliari, Cagliari

Claudia Caltagirone received her PhD in Chemistry in 2006 under the supervision of Prof. Vito Lippolis at the University of Cagliari. In the same year she became assistant professor at the University of Cagliari. She spent two years at the University of Southampton (UK) as Visiting Research Fellow where she worked in Prof. Philip Gale’s laboratory. Since March 2016 she is Associate Professor at the University of Cagliari.  In April 2016 she was Visiting Professor at the University of Bordeaux (France). Her research interests focus on Supramolecular Chemistry (design, synthesis and characterisation of molecular chemosensors for anion and cation recognition) and on assembled systems (lipid-based nanoparticles for diagnostic and therapeutic applications). She is member of the Post-Graduate School of Chemical Science and Technology at the University of  Cagliari; member of CSGI (Centre for Colloid and Surface Science); member of the Royal Society of Chemistry member of GIF (Italian Group of Photochemistry). She is co-author of more than 70 papers in international peer-review journals and she has an h-index of 26 with more than 2000 citations.