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Biography
BSc (First-Class Honours) Chemistry/Pharmacy/Biology with majors in Food Science and Technology at Universidad La Salle/UNAM Mexico City (1988); MSc in Food Science in Reading University, UK (1990); PhD in Food Polysaccharides at Cranfield University, UK (1994).
Research Scientist and Group Leader (Laboratory of Biopolymers) at CIAD, Hermosillo Mexico (1995 to 2006); Visiting Scholar at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain (2001-2002); Visiting Scientist at Universidad de Santiago de Compostela collaborated at EU project NanoBioSaccharides (2006-2007) and International Marie Curie fellow (2008-2010); Associate Professor at Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology at University of Münster, Germany (2010 to 2016). Visiting Professor to the School of Food Science and Nutrition of University of Leeds, U.K. (2024-2027); Mercator Fellow of "CodeChi" priority programme (2024-2026) (DFG, Germany).
PI of the Indo-German international graduate school MCGS, also PI of the project FENAMI-Denmark (aiming to formulate novel nano- and microparticles for buccal drug delivery) and workpackage leader EU Project Nano3Bio (aiming at biotechnological bioinspired ways to produce chitosan polymers with defined properties and functionalities).
In 2016 was appointed Full Professor (Chair in Biopolymers) at School of Food Science and Nutrition of University of Leeds, U.K. Principal investigator hosting Marie Slodowska Curie Fellowship ”Biopolymer Assisted Remediation of Microplastics” (MINUSMICRO – EU Horizon2020); Principal investigator of project “Optimization and Demonstration of a Sustainable Bioprocess for Extraction of Value-Added Food Supplements and Ingredients from Crustacean Waste Resource (TAMFI)” UKRI UK-Canada; PI hosting fellowship “Enhancing the bacterial anti-quorum effect by using chitosan based nanoencapsulation” (Academy of Medical Sciences, U.K.). As of December 2023, he has been awarded a Distinguished Professorship, "Beatriz Galindo" at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Murcia, Spain.
Author of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Has collaborated actively with universities, research centres and companies in Germany, Mexico, Denmark, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands and Argentina.
Founder and elected president of the Iberoamerican Chitin Society (2002 to 2006). Member of the Board of the European Chitin Society (2011 to date). Trustee of the Food Hydrocolloids Trust (U.K.) since 2018. Member of the editorial board of Scientific Reports and Pharmaceutics, Food and Function (2018-2021) and Associate Editor of Food Hydrocolloids since 2021. Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (U.K.) since 2021.
Fields of scientific expertise are biopolymer science, nanobiotechnology and food structure, with more than twenty years of experience researching biomass-sourced polymers as building blocks of novel bio-inspired materials such as soft hydrogels and nanoparticles for biomedical and biotechnological applications.
Areas of research interests include:
• Structure-function relationships that determine the biophysical and biological properties of chitosan- and other biopolymer-based soft material (namely, nano- and microparticles, hydrogels) and their interactions with biological barriers and interface networks (mucosa, epithelia, bacterial biofilms).
• Biopolymer-based materials as vehicles of phytochemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients intending to modify their biological and sensory profile (e.g., mouthfeel, flavour release, pungency), and enhance their oral bioavailability and thus their health/therapeutic benefits. Bioactive compounds of interest include low molecular weight phytochemicals (e.g., flavonoids, capsaicinoids) and non-Lipinsky biologics such as peptides, proteins, nucleic acids and enzymes.
• Microfluidics phenotype profiling and novel ways of investigating the interactions between biopolymer-based nanomaterials and bacteria immobilised in microgel beads.
• Top-down and bottom-up approaches to developing sustainable structured innovative food products.
• Development of antibiotic-free therapies against the virulence of bacterial pathogens relevant to food, aquaculture and health. Two approaches are pursued in this direction. One is to disrupt pathogenic bacteria's quorum sensing (QS) processes and thus exert control on their virulence responses (e.g., biofilm formation) using biopolymer-based nanoparticles. The other one involves specific polysaccharides as bioactive components of emulsions that exhibit antiadhesive activity against bacteria such as Helicobacter pylori.
• In silico simulations of nanomaterial behaviour and other critical phenomena in living systems. Agent-based models are currently developed to simulate the bacterial quorum sensing response and the interaction between bacteria and nanoparticles.
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6992744500
04/00156-1