Group Members

Phone +34 934039258 c.rovira@ub.edu 

Carme is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona. She holds a PhD from UB and has carried out research stays in USA (University of North Carolina and Southern Illinois University), Germany (Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung) and UK (University of York). She works in the modeling of catalytic mechanisms in enzymes using computer simulation, with a focus on carbohydrate-active enzymes. She has received research awards from the Catalonia government (2003), the Barcelona City Council (2016), the European Carbohydrate Organization (2019) and the European Research Council (ERC-SyG). She is President of the Computational Chemistry group of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ). In her spare time, Carme likes walking in the city and cooking for friends and family.

Phone: +34 934039254 albanin@ub.edu

Alba holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the UB (2010–2014), a European Master in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling (TCCM, 2014–2016). She did her PhD in Computational Biochemistry at the UB (2016–2020), under the supervision of Prof. Carme Rovira, funded by a PhD fellowship from AGAUR. During PhD, she was 3 month at the University of York, working with Prof. Gideon Davies. She perfoemed a postdoctoral stay at the Toulouse Biotechnology Institute under the supervision of Prof. Isabelle André (2023-24). She was promoted to Assistant Professor (lecturer) in June 2025.

Alba's esearch focuses on the computational study of enzymatic reactions using QM/MM molecular dynamics and enhanced sampling techniques. She has contributed to interdisciplinary projects involving enzymes, carbohydrates in solution and superacid media, organic molecules and receptor channel proteins. In her free time, Alba enjoys reading, watching films, and participating in human towers (castells).

Phone: +34 934021252 jprivas@ub.edu

José Pablo received his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Seville (Spain) in 2020. During his undergraduate studies, he discovered a passion for programming and realized he wanted to use computational tools to solve biology-related problems. To pursue this interest, he moved to Barcelona and completed an M.Sc. in Bioinformatics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).

During his master’s, he specialized in drug design and protein engineering, and completed an internship at Zymvol Biomodelling S.L., where he analyzed variants of plastic-degrading enzymes using computational techniques.

After graduating, he joined the Rovira Lab—first as a Junior Researcher funded by the CARBOCENTRE Synergy Grant, and later as a PhD student supported by a fellowship from the Spanish Ministry (FPI). His research focuses on applying Molecular Dynamics and QM/MM methods to unravel the molecular mechanisms of alginate-degrading enzymes, as well as developing new protocols for more efficient sampling and improved transferability across different enzymatic reactions.

Outside the lab, José Pablo leads an active lifestyle. He enjoys playing padel, hiking in the mountains, and spending quality time with friends and family.

Phone: +34 934039105 mert.sagiroglugil@ub.edu

Mert attended Hacettepe University in Turkey from 2013 to 2021, where he earned his BSc. and MSc. degrees in Physics. During his time there, he specialized in statistical mechanics, engineering mathematics, thermodynamics, and computational biochemistry and worked as a research assistant for three years. In 2022, he relocated to Barcelona to pursue his PhD. in Computational Biochemistry at the Universitat de Barcelona’s Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modeling program. His research focuses on rare ligands and non-classical reaction mechanisms in glycoprocesses, supervised by Dr. Carme Rovira. He has no time for himself. He is a member of the prestigious organization MNC-OC (Married, No Children - Only a Cat).

Phone: +34 934039254 davidjohndelima@ub.edu

David earned his B.Sc. in Biochemistry and a citation in Chemistry from De La Salle University - Manila in the Philippines in 2019. He then worked as a Division Manager at a start-up biotech solutions company for two years, gaining valuable experience in the industry. In 2023, he completed his Erasmus Mundus M.Sc. degrees in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling as an Erasmus Mundus Scholar. During this time, he conducted research internships at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (IQTC). David joined the Rovira Lab as a research assistant in 2023 and was awarded a La Caixa Foundation INPhINIT Research Fellowship in 2024. His current research focuses on the protein and reaction dynamics of retaining glycosyltransferases.

Phone: +34 934021252 laura.mazo@ub.edu

Laura studied Chemistry at the University of Barcelona (2018 - 2022), where she developed a strong interest in computational modelling applied to biological systems. In 2022, she did an Erasmus stay at the University of Glasgow, where she carried out the bachelor’s thesis under the supervision of Prof. Hans Martin Senn. Back to the University of Barcelona, she applied to a Summer internship in the research group of Prof. Carme Rovira, where she became familiar with QM/MM MD simulations and enhanced sampling methods. In 2024 she obtained a scholarship to pursue the Erasmus Mundus master in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling. Her Master thesis was done under the supervision of Prof. Carme Rovira and Prof. Gideon Davies (University of York). In 2025 she started a PhD in the group of Prof. Carme Rovira at the UB, in the field of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry from the Doctoral program of Organic Chemistry. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, walking around the city, and being with family and friends.

Phone +34 934021252 samira.alsadi@ub.edu

Samira holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology and a Master’s degree in Industrial and Molecular Biotechnology, both obtained at the University of Bologna (Italy), from 2018 to 2024. She carried out her Master's thesis at Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany) in 2023, where she focused on the study of the human oxytocin receptor using molecular dynamics approaches. She joined the Rovira Lab in November 2024 as a PhD student. Her research focuses on structural and biochemical characterisation of N-glycans and glycoprocessing enzymes in Archaea and Microalgae using state-of-the-art multi-scale approaches based on docking, classical molecular dynamics (MD) and quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM).

a.pepe@ub.edu

Alessandro received his B.Sc. (2019) and M.Sc. (2021) in Chemistry from the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca (Italy). Alessandro joined the Rovira Lab as a PhD student in 2022. His research focuses on the computational modelling of substrate recognition and catalysis in glycosidase enzymes. In his free time, he enjoys reading, watching films, and spending time with friends and family.