Mario Culebras, PhD in Chemistry obtained at the University of Valencia (2017). Mario Culebras currently works as lecturer in the physical chemistry department at the University of Valencia. He is also part of the Institute of Material Science at the University of Valencia where he is doing research focused on the recovery of biomass residues to produce advanced nanomaterials, publishing more than 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 9 patents, 4 book chapters and presenting more than 50 papers at renowned international conferences. In addition, he works on several national and international research projects, being the principal investigator of several of them.

Professor and researcher focused on the development of biosensors and pathogen detection systems, combining theoretical and experimental approaches to improve and optimize biosensing processes. His career includes research in physical chemistry and electrochemistry, collaboration with industry, and co-supervision of doctoral theses, with a strong emphasis on translating results into innovative technological solutions.

M.Carmen Martínez-Bisbal is graduated in Chemistry (Universitat de València (UV), 1996) and in Biochemistry (UV, 2014). She gained her PhD in 2003 at Physical Chemistry department at UV, on the application of NMR spectroscopy to the study of brain diseases. She is currently Associate Professor at Physical Chemistry Department at UV (from 2022).

She develops her research on in vivo NMR spectroscopy, microNMR, HR NMR spectroscopy and ex vivo HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy, for the study of samples of biomedical interest in the context of different diseases, in the research group MODeLiC in the Interuniversitary Research Institute for Molecular Recognition and Technological Development (IDM UV-UPV), in the Joint Research Unit in Nanomedicine and Sensors between Fundació Hospital La Fe and IDM, and in the research group CB07/01/2012 in the Biomedical Research Network Center in the field of Bioengineering, Biomaterials, and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN).

Her research is focused on NMR metabolomics for the study of biofluids, and development of non-invasive biomarkers of disease and progression (bladder cancer Loras et al, Cancers 2019 11: 686, and Cancers 2019 11: 914, Alzheimer Disease Botello-Marabotto et al. Neurobiol.  Dis. 2023 and patent P202030235, PCT/ES2021/070203, glaucoma detection Botello-Marabotto et al. Talanta 2024 and patent P202131032, atheroma plaque vulnerability Botello-Maraboto et al. Talanta 2025, and pulmonary fibrosis Botello-Marabotto et al. J. Med. Virol. 2025).

She also works in the development of new sensors for disease/biomarker detection based on electrochemical sensors (prostate cancer Pascual et al. Analyst 2016, Monreal-Trigo et al. iScience 2022) and based on gated materials for detection (gluten Pla et al. Anal. Chim. Acta 2021, colorectal cancer Pla et al. Nanoscale 2021, mutation in gliomas Pla et al. Sens. Actuators B Chem. 2021) and for targeting cancer cells (colonic tissue González-Álvarez et al. Mol. Pharmaceutics 2017, Bhat et al. Nanoscale 2017)

She is co-author of 55 publications in international journals (over 1777 times cited to papers published, h-index 23). She is inventor of 3 patents. She has participated in 34 research projects (3 European, 15 national, 2 autonomic projects, 14 projects with universities, hospitals and public research institutions).

She has developed research activities with companies. She worked in Hospital Quirón to develop in vivo NMR spectroscopy application in patients (2000-2003). She developed projects with Laboratorios SERONO and Dr. Esteve S.A. She was external collaborator in Philips Sistemas Médicos (2001-2007) for in vivo NMR spectroscopy application in 17 hospitals in Spain and Portugal. She collaborated with Bruker Biospin, to implement the HR-MAS NMR technique to the study of tissue biopsies (Martínez-Bisbal et al. NMR Biomed. 2004, Martínez-Bisbal et al. NMR Biomed. 2009). She collaborated with FACSA for the development of voltammetric electronic tongue for the monitoring of wastewater and spring water (Martínez-Bisbal et al. Electroanalysis 2017, Carbó et al. Sensors 2017, patent P201631405). She collaborated with Buggypower for the development of sensors for quality control in microalgae production (Martínez-Bisbal et al. Sens. Actuators B Chem. 2019).

She has supervised 3 PhD thesis. She is reviewer for Frontiers in Oncology, Anal. Bioanal. Chem., Food Analytical Methods, Sensors, Epilepsia, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience and Metabolomics journals. She has served as international project evaluator for Narodrowe Centrum Nauki – NCN Poland PRELUDIUM call, and she was Remote Referee of ERC Starting Grant. She is secretary of the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Universitat de Valencia since February 2022.

Dr. Daniel Tordera is an Associate Professor at the Department of Physical Chemistry and the Molecular Science Institute (ICMol) of the University of Valencia.

He received his PhD in Nanotechnology at the University of Valencia in 2014, where he studied light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs), an ionic organic electronic system for light emission. His PhD received the Outstanding Doctorate Award by the University of Valencia and the Nanomatmol Award to the best PhD at a National level by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry. His work elucidated the operational mechanism of LECs and lead to the fabrication of stable, fast, efficient and bright devices. As a step forward, he started his own company, Lec-Val Lighting, a spin-off created to commercialize the results of his PhD. The company was chosen as one of the most innovative ideas by the Repsol Entrepreneurship Fund. Subsequently, he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linköping University, working in the field of optics and plasmonics for energy and sensing applications. In 2017, he joined Holst Centre at TNO as a Senior Researcher where he led the development on near infrared photodetectors, managing an interdisciplinary team of research staff and engineers and working in projects for world leading high-tech and consumer electronics companies. He also led the business development of his research line, including strategy roadmap and intellectual property portfolio. He worked in the fields of biometrics and healthcare and made achievements including the first noncontact reflective large-area vein pattern imager based on organic photodetectors, a near-infrared photodetector array for biomedical applications and a large-area fingerprint array complying with the FBI standards. Since Nov. 2020, Dr. Tordera is at the University of Valencia, where he focuses on the topics of perovskite photodetectors and LEDs, OLEDs and LECs, with works such as the first transparent LEC and the development of a semitransparent near-infrared perovskite photodetector, amongst others.

Dr. Tordera has published 73 papers and 1 book chapter (almost all Q1). His work has been cited over 3600 times (h-index 35). He is an inventor of 5 patents. His work has been presented at over 40 international conferences (22 author, 29 co-author). He has been the principal investigator of 3 projects and has participated in 12 projects. He has been the research manager of multiple contracts with private companies (NDA-protected). He has been an evaluator for the European Innovation Council (EIC) at the European Comission, the Spanish Research Agency (AEI), the Austrian Science Fund and the Latvian Council of Science. He has been a reviewer for the major editorial groups (Wiley, ACS, RSC, Springer Nature, etc.). He has supervised 3 BSc, 5 MSc and 2 PhD students and he is currently co-supervising 3 PhD candidates. He has received the European Materials Research Society Spring Meeting Young Scientist Award in 2012, the Society of Information Display Distinguished Paper Award in 2019, selected as Journal of Materials Chemistry C Emerging Investigator in 2022 and the XVIII Scientific Technical Award Ciutat d’Algemesí in 2023, amongst others. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara and he has carried out stays at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source in Ithaca and the Columbia University in New York. He has been a guest lecturer at the ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, where he applied his entrepreneurship experience to teach business development to multidisciplinary science MSc students. 

At the University of Valencia, he is teaching Physical Chemistry courses at the Faculties of Chemistry and Farmacy. Students have praised his innovative teaching by granting him one of the highest ratings in his Department. From 2022 to 2025 he was the Educational Innovation Coordinator of the Faculty of Chemistry. He has published 3 educational innovation articles, presented his work in 9 conferences, and he participates in a project focused on active teaching methodologies. He has led a university-wide innovative project to promote science interdisciplinarity amongst the students at the University and he has been an organizer in the national Chemistry Education conference (Indoquim). He participates in the Chemistry Olympics and in Lab activities to promote Chemistry for high school students.