Members

She earned her BSc in Chemistry with honors in 2014 at the University of Jaén (Spain), and her MSc in Characterization of Chemical Systems in 2015 at the University of Alcalá (Madrid, Spain). She obtained an international PhD scholarship (2015-2018) at the University of Siena (Italy) with Prof. Olivucci, focusing on developing and appliying a semi-automatic protocol (ARM protocol) for constructing QM/MM models for rhodopsin-type proteins. She performed a research stay of 6 months at Bowling Green State University (USA). In 2019, she received her PhD (excellent cum laude) and continued as a Researcher Fellow. She then pursued two international postdoctoral fellowships: 1) JSPS International Postdoctoral Fellowship where she collaborated with Prof. Inoue at the ISSP – UTokyo (Japan) for a research period of 24 months (2020-2022). There, she integrated computational modeling techniques with advanced experimental spectroscopic methods to understand the spectral tuning mechanism of microbial rhodopsin proteins; 2) International Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Azrieli Foundation, where she joined Prof. Béjà group at Technion (Israel) for a research period of 20 months (2023-2024) including a short research stay of 3 months at the ISSP (Japan, 2024). Her research involves the spectroscopic characterization of newly discovered rhodopsins. She has consolidated her leadership and independence as Principal Investigator FEDER UJA Talent and most recently she became Ramón y Cajal Researcher at the University of Jaén (Spain), where she leads the new OPTGENROD research line.

Research Lines

• Evolutionary diversification of light perception: A search for novel rhodopsins families (Experimental line)

• Computational and experimental dissection of light-responsive for next-generation Optogenetics (Experimental/Computational line)

• Rational design and computational optimization of fluorescent viscosity sensors (Computational line)

Bibliography

Research Lines

• Research Line Title (Computational line, Co-direction with Prof. Amparo Navarro Rascón)

• Rational design and computational optimization of fluorescent viscosity sensors (Computational line, Co-direction with Prof. Amparo Navarro Rascón)

Bibliography

Research Line

• Study of optoelectronic and charge-transport properties of asymmetric diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) derivatives using DFT calculations  (Computational line, Co-direction with Prof. María de la Paz Fernández de Liencres de la Torre)

Bibliography

Research Line

• FTIR spectroscopic characterization of proton transfer in rhodopsin DSE009 and its mutant DTE009  (Experimental line, Co-direction with Dr. María Mar Quesada Moreno)