Prof. Dr. Josep Puigmartí-Luis

Prof. Dr. Josep Puigmartí-Luis is a chemist who completed a master in Chemistry and Food Engineering at “Institut Químic de Sarrià (IQS)” (2003) and did a PhD in materials science at Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB). His work in supramolecular and flow chemistry, has been awarded with “Premi Antoni de Martí i Franquès de Ciències Químiques”, award from the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (2009), St. Jordi award from the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Societat Catalana de Química (2006) and an ETH fellowship in 2008.

In 2012, he was appointed a Ramon Y Cajal (RyC) researcher, but after two years as a RyC, he decided to move back to Switzerland where in 2015 was awarded an ERC starting grant to study and control self-assembly processes of metal-organic based crystalline materials. In 2019, he was appointed as an ICREA Research Professor, and since 2020, his group is located at the University of Barcelona (UB).

His research interests include the synthesis and controlled design of functional materials in solution and on surfaces, as well as the development of microfluidic technologies to command and understand the formation and function of unprecedented out-of-equilibrium assemblies (a key aspect to unveil structure-properties correlations of new functional matter).

Dr. Maria Guix

Dr. Maria Guix received her PhD in Chemistry, M.S. degree in Nanotechnology and B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).

During her PhD she worked in the Prof. Merkoçi’s group at Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), working on the integration of nanomaterials in biosensing platforms. As a PhD candidate, she did two short internships related to the development of catalytic nanomotors, first in EMPA (Switzerland) and then in the University of California San Diego (USA) under the supervision of Prof. Joseph Wang.

She later joined Prof. Oliver Schmidt’s group as a postdoctoral researcher at IFW Dresden, developing biocompatible micromotors for biomedical applications. Afterwards, she moved to Purdue University to work on the automation of magnetic microrobots for safe manipulation tasks by using visual-based control methods. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) for 4 years under the supervision of Prof. Samuel Sánchez’ group, focusing her research line in the development of advanced functional living robots. She recently moved to the University of Barcelona at Prof. Josep Puigmartí group as Ramon y Cajal senior researcher

Dr. Beltzane Garcia-Cirera

Beltzane Garcia-Cirera obtained a bachelor’s in chemistry in 2010 at the University of Barcelona (UB), followed by a M.Sc. in Advanced Inorganic Chemistry (2011) and finally a PhD (2016), under the supervision of Dr Montserrat Corbella in the Bioinorganic Models group. The PhD dealt with the study of the magnetic and catalytic properties of polynuclear manganese complexes, mimetics of the active centre of Mn-catalases as a new antioxidants against reactive oxygen species (ROS). The PhD training included an internship (2014) at École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Lyon (France), through a C-Mira fellowship, under the direction of Dr. Belen Albela. There, she entered into the world of Materials Science synthesising functionalized mesoporous silica with the aim to introduce manganese compounds into the support for more efficient antioxidants, non-toxics and actives in aqueous media.

After the PhD, she returned as a Post-Doc to the ENS, with a C-MIRA Pro fellowship, to expand the previous studies. At that time, synthesising functionalised silica nanoparticles with the aim to reduce the size of the hybrid-material supports. In mid-2017 she returned to the UB to work as a specialized laboratory technician and teaching assistant. In 2019 she moved to the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB) as a project manager at FunNanoSurf group led by Prof. Núria Aliaga and Dr. Arántzazu González. In 2021 she returned to the UB to work in In the Reaction Mechanisms group of Prof. Manel Martínez and Dr. Montserrat Ferrer; working in the preparation of Azo-type ligands to be included in mixed valence compounds. In autumn 2022, she joined the group of Prof. Josep Puigmartí as a Post-Doc Project & Lab manager.

Dr. Tuan Ngo

Tuan received the bachelor’s degree of Mechatronics Engineering from the VNU University of Engineering and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam in 2019. After working as teaching and research assistant at the same university for one year, from 2020 to 2022, he was pursuing the Master in Smart Systems Integration, an Erasmus Mundus Joint International Master Program hosted by three universities in Europe, which are Heriot-Watt University, University of South-Eastern Norway, and Budapest University of Technology and Economics. On the completion of his master thesis, he did an internship at the Advanced Patterning Center, Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC). Since October 2022, he has joined the ChemInFlow group at the University of Barcelona as a PhD student, under the supervision of Prof. Josep Puigmartí-Luis and Dr. Alessandro Sorrenti.

His research interests include Bio-MEMS designs, microfluidics technology, IoT applications, and smart miniaturized systems. During his PhD, he will design and build systems utilizing microfluidic technology to synthesize and control functional composite materials.

Dr. Michele Mattera

Michele Mattera obtained in 2017 his PhD in Nanoscience and Molecular Nanotechnology, from the University of Valencia, where he worked in Prof. Eugenio Coronado ‘s group (Material Science Institute, ICMol), under the supervision of Dr. Alicia Forment Aliaga and Dr. Sergio Tatay, working in the field of molecular spintronics, with a thesis entitled “Molecular Nanostructures on Ferromagnetic Metals for Spintronics”. Then he moved to the Parisian Institute of Molecular Chemistry (IPCM, Sorbonne University, Paris) where he joined the E-POM Team leaded by Prof. Anna Proust in 2018, later he joined the Polymer’s Group leaded by Dr. Laurent Bouteiller, in the same institute. From October 2020, he joined the ChemInFlow group leaded by Prof. Josep Puigmarti-Luis at University of Barcelona.

His research background is in the field of material chemistry, at the interface with the surface science, leading the development and study of materials of interest in the field of molecular spintronics, later he studied the controlled deposition of complexes formed by polyoxometalates and functionalized phthalocyanines, or luminescent complexes of functionalized perylenes with phthalocyanines. At the moment he will expand his research field to the covalent organic framework in the microfluidic domains.

James Nicholas

James received his B.A. from the University of Cambridge in 2017, where he studied Natural Sciences, with a focus on chemistry. He then completed an M.Sc. by research at the University of York in 2018, supervised by Dr. Victor Chechik. In 2019 he started his doctoral studies at ETH Zürich, as part of the deMello group, in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences in the lab of Dr. Josep Puigmarti-Luis. In August 2020, he moved to the University of Barcelona as part of the ChemInFlow group to continue his research, remaining a doctoral candidate at ETH, and co-supervised by Prof. Andrew deMello, Prof. Josep Puigmartí-Luis and Dr. Alessandro Sorrenti.

During his MSc project, his work focussed on studying the host–guest chemistry of coordination cages using EPR spectroscopy. By introducing stable nitroxide radical species as guests inside the cages and observing differences between the EPR signals of bound and unbound guest molecules, information about the binding environment of the cages, and the host-guest interactions between the cages and radical species, could be determined.

His doctoral research interests include the investigation of dissipative non-equilibrium systems and the development of functional materials through design and synthesis of porous supramolecular networks. These aims will be pursued using microfluidic techniques, investigating pathway selection in the formation of such networks, and studying the assembly and disassembly behaviour and how it may be controlled.