María Maneiro Rey

Biography

I received my bachelor’s degree in Chemistry (2011) and my master’s degree in Advanced Chemistry (2012) from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.
I did my Ph. D. Thesis in Organic Chemistry (April 2018) entitled “New enzyme inhibitors involved in virulence, metabolism and resistance mechanisms of bacteria for the treatment of multi-resistant bacterial infections” under the supervision of Prof. Concepción González-Bello (http:// www.gonzalezbello.com) at Center for Research in Chemical Biology and Molecular Materials – CIQUS (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain), funded by a competitive Formación de Profesorado Universitario (FPU) fellowship. In the course of my Ph. D. I mastered my skills in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Chemical Biology, and protein crystallization techniques.
During my PhD, I did a predoctoral short stay in the group of Dr. Gonçalo Bernardes (University of Cambridge, UK, May–July 2016) working on the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of methylsulfonyl acrylamides as linkers for the development of novel antibody-drug conjugates.
After my viva, I was awarded with a competitive postdoctoral fellowship from the Xunta de Galicia (Posdoutoral Modalidade A – 2018), which allowed me to join the group of Prof. Ed Tate (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/tategroup) at Imperial College London, UK (November 2018 to April 2021). During my stay in the Tate lab, I worked in the field of Chemical Biology with special orientation towards anticancer drug discovery. In particular, my research was focused on the development of Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) and in the study of the conditional activation and selective delivery of these chimeric degraders. My postdoctoral stay in the Tate group provided me with skills in cell biology, molecular cloning and biochemistry.
Currently, since April 2021, I am a postdoctoral researcher (Xunta de Galicia Fellow – Modalidade A) in the group of Prof. González-Bello (CIQUS, USC) and my research is focused on the study of new approaches in antibacterial drug discovery.
My general research interests fall in the boundaries amongst Chemistry, Biology and Molecular Medicine with special focus on the application of Chemistry for the understanding and modulation of pathological processes using innovative approaches.