2025

March 31 and April 30, 2025. GROUP ACTIVITY ON STRATEGIC THINKING. Check out our photo gallery.

April 11, 2025. KICK OFF MEETING CELEBRATION OF THE MATRIX CONSORTIA. At IMDEA Nanoscience, we held the kick-off meeting of the MATRIX consortium, where Sara and the other seven principal investigators (PIs) involved shared information about their research groups and discussed future collaboration plans within the framework of the Tecnologías project.  Check the funding section for more information. 

April 7, 2025. PREMIOS FERMINA ORDUÑA CEREMONY ATTENDANCE. Sara was invited to attend the Fermina Orduña Awards ceremony, held by the Community of Madrid, along with other colleagues from IMDEA. These awards recognize innovation and offer a valuable opportunity to witness cutting-edge advancements at an international level. Thank you for the invitation. Check out our photo gallery. 

March 28, 2025. OUTREACH EVENT! This year, our group once again participated in the Madrid es Ciencia outreach fair at IFEMA in Madrid, Spain. The IMDEA Nanoscience stand focused on the topic of light. We showcased our photosystem game to demonstrate how nature can be mimicked to harness light. We gave out group pamphlets abd IMDEA passports highlighting the strengths of the IMDEA institutes in Madrid. Check out our photo gallery. 

February 26, 2025.  INVITED SEMINAR. We presented our work at the Institute of Photonic Science (ICFO) in Casteldefells (Spain) in their internal seminar program. It was a great opportunity to share our work with leading scientists specializing in cutting-edge spectroscopy technologies. 

February 11, 2025. OUTREACH INTERVIEW. The @scientificvideogames interviewed Sara as an inspiring scientist for the day of the Woman and the Girl in Science. Check the interview in the link.

February 5, 2025. PRESENTATION OF OUR OUTREACH PLAN. Asier, in charge of the outreach in the group, presented our outreach strategy for this year. This initiative will target our outreach strategy for the year. Our target, high school kids (from 13 to 18 years). This year we will aim to inspire new generations using outreach as a tool. 

2024

December 18, 2024. CHRISTMAS LUNCH! We celebrated our Christmas lunch by heading to the city center and ending the day at Madrid's Christmas market. We even had Christmas boots filled with nougat, sweets, festive socks, and ornaments—a great way to kick off the holiday season! Check out our photo gallery. 

December 17, 2024. CONGRESS ATTENDANCE! We participated in the 14th Early Stage Researcher Workshop (ESRW) at IMDEA Nanoscience, presenting five group posters by Asier, Gonzalo, Claudia, Adhil, and Atikur. Angelo also contributed as part of the scientific committee. It was a fantastic environment to share our research! Check out our photo gallery. 

November 13, 2024. OUTREACH ACTIVITY! We took part in Science Week at IMDEA Nanoscience, where we presented to school kids how to engineer an artificial photosystem. It was a fun and inspiring experience, especially seeing the enthusiasm of the kids for learning! Check our photo gallery. 

October 31, 2024. HALLOWEEN PRESENT! We have a small group gift to celebrate Halloween—sweets make the best treat! Check our photo gallery. 

April 23, 2024. NEW EQUIPMENT IN THE GROUP! We acquired a new Sigma centrifuge for our group. This allows us to centrifuge different volumens simultaneously going from microliters of proteins to liters of bacterial cultures!  Check our facilities section.  

October 27, 2024. PROJECT FUNDED! As part of the R&D program in TECHNOLOGIES for the Madrid community, this project brings together researchers in time-resolved spectroscopy to study the properties of matter across different time scales, ranging from attoseconds to milliseconds (1.2 M€). Go to our funding section to know more.

October 1, 2024. WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBER: Asier García. After doing his master's thesis with us, Asier started as a PhD student in our group. We are excited excited to see you starting this project! Check the Team member section. 

September 27, 2024. OUTREACH ACTIVITY!. Asier and Teresa took part in the International Researchers' Night at the CaixaForum in Madrid, where they presented the importance of interdisciplinarity in science. Click here to check the activity. 

September 22, 2024. BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION!. Atikur brought some cakes to celebrate his birthday with a nice coffee break! Happy birthday! Check our photo gallery. 

September 20, 2024. WELCOME & FAREWELL PARTY and MASTER THESIS CELEBRATION! With so many reasons to celebrate lately, we decided to mark the occasion with a fun bowling night! A warm welcome to Atikur and Adhil, who turned out to be fantastic bowlers, and congratulations to Asier and Teresa on their master thesis achievements!  Check out our photo gallery. 

September 18, 2024. CHILEAN DAY CELEBRATION! One of the best things about having an international group is the perfect excuse to celebrate and enjoy delicious food from different countries. Big thanks to Angelo for the amazing alfajores! Check out our photo gallery. 

September 13, 2024. MASTER THESIS DEFENSE! Teresa and Asier defended their master's thesis!! They did great work in the lab and defended it even better!! We are very proud of you! Check out our photo gallery. 

September 10, 2024. A NEW REVIEW PUBLISHED IN PROTEIN SCIENCE! This review explores the design of bio-hybrids, their potential for revealing mechanistic insights into photosynthesis, and the challenges in the field. We celebrated with a nice breakfast! Check our photo gallery and for full text click here. 

September 1, 2024. WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBER: Adhil kabeer. Atdhil started as a PhD student in our group supported by the IDEAL COFOUND research grant. We are excited to see you starting this project! Check the Team member section. 

July 19, 2024. BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION! Gonzalo brought delicious cakes to celebrate his birthday! We are glad we can celebrate this special day with you, and thanks for the treats! Check out our photo gallery. 

July 14 to 19, 2024. CONGRESS ATTENDANCE! Sara presented her work at the 29th PhotoIUPAC symposium on photochemistry which gathers International scientists working in the field of photochemistry. Check out our photo gallery.   

 
July 8 to 12, 2024. CONGRESS ATTENDANCE! Angelo presented his work at the NEXT COST Action meeting held at IMDEA Nanoscience. We are now part of the X-ray community with our molecules!

July 11, 2024. FAREWELL PARTY! We prepared a nice picnic as a farewell party for Enrique and to celebrate his nice TFG defense. We use the opportunity also to welcome Atikur, the new postdoc in our group!. Check out our photo gallery. 

July 8, 2024. BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION!. Sara brought some cakes to celebrate her birthday with a nice coffee break! Happy birthday Sara! Check out our photo gallery. 

July 2, 2024. NEW GROUP INITIATIVE! From now we will add in our fridge the ugliest magnet we found in each of our trips!! Check our photo gallery. 

July 1 to 31, 2024. PARTICIPATION IN THE DADORIS FOUNDATION PROGRAM! Angelo supervised three students coming from the Dadoris Foundation to see how we work in the lab. A nice opportunity to bring the students into science. Click here for more information. 

June 28, 2024. ENRIQUE DEFENDED HIS BACHELOR PROJECT! After months of hard work, Enrique put the project together and defended his work very nicely. Congrats, Enrique for this work!! We wish you good luck in your next step! 

June 28, 2024. SYMPOSIUM ATTENDANCE. Asier, Teresa, and Angelo attended the second symposium of physical chemistry at UAM. This symposium gathers experts in physical chemistry while giving the opportunity to share research in the physical chemistry society. ANGELO WAS AWARDED WITH THE BEST POSTER PRIZE! Congrats Aneglo!! Check out our photo gallery. 

June 16 to 22, 2024. ATTENDANCE TO THE EUROPEAN PHOTOBIOLGY  SCHOOL! Gonzalo and Claudia attended the European Photobiology school at the University of Padova (Brixen, Italy) to learn from top researchers the basis of photobiology. It was a nice experience to learn and share science. Click here to learn more about the event and Check our photo gallery. 

June 4 to 7, 2024. ATTENDANCE TO THE SOCIEDAD DE BIOFÍSICA (SBE) CONGRESS. Gonzalo and Claudia attended to the SBE congress this time as the EUROPEAN SOUTH ATLANTIC BIOPHYSICS CONGRESS in San Sebastian (Spain). This congress is the first event of a regional agreement between the three biophysics societies that gathers researchers in the South-West of Europe. Check out our photo gallery.   

June 4, 2024. OUTREACH EVENT. At IMDEA Nanoscience we celebrated the 1st Nanoscience fair where all the groups had the opportunity to share their research with their colleagues at IMDEA in an informal environment. We prepared the photosystem game where we show the steps to develop a simplified photosystem. Our game was selected by the IMDEA´s director to develop a real gameboard based on our prototype!! We are very happy about this honor! Check out our photo gallery.   

June 5 to 7, 2024. ATTENDANCE TO BIOGENIC MATERIAL WORKSHOP! This was the only invited workshop celebrated at Straubing University (Germany) that gathered researchers working in different fields of biological materials. A very interesting experience!. Thank you, Prof. Rubén Costa, for the invitation. 

May 30, 2024. ATTENDANCE TO THE ANNUAL PHD PROGRAM MEETING. Gonzalo and Claudia attended the annual PhD program meeting at UAM to show their progress in their first year of the PhD and share their experiences with other PhDs in the program.

May 29, 2024. ANGELO´S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. Thanks, Angelo for bringing some Chilean´s sweets to celebrate your birthday! The best part of having international people in the group is sharing cultures! Check out our photo gallery.

May 21, 2024. OUR FIRST EXPERIMENT AT TRIESTE SYNCHROTRON. We performed our first synchrotron experiment, thanks to our collaboration with Dr. Claudio Masciovecchio on developing nanostructured arrays! We learned a lot, and we came back with the energy to continue our research in this direction! Check out our photo gallery. 

April 23, 2024. NEW EQUIPMENT IN THE GROUP! We acquired a new FPLC for our group, the Akta Pure systems. This equipment will allow us to perform our protein purifications more efficiently being a nice adquisition for our group. Check our facilities section.  

April 15, 2024. A travel GRANT AWARDED TO CLAUDIA AND GONZALO!! Claudia and Gonzalo have been awarded the SBE travel grant to attend the EBSA congress in San Sebastian (Spain). CONGRATULATIONS!!  

March 19, 2024. PhD FELLOWSHIP AWARDED TO ADHIL KABEER! Adhil Kabeer was awarded a Marie Curie COFOUND PhD grant from the IMDEA´s IDEAL Program to perform his PhD thesis in our group! This grant will support Adhil for 4 years to study the effect of complex environments on TAFD molecules. CONGRATS ADHIL! We are looking forward to welcoming you to our group.  Go to our funding section to know more.

March 15, 2024. OUR FIRST GROUP ACTIVITY. We work on a team-building activity on how to be stronger as a team and go cooking together!! After a session where we discussed how to improve as a team member, we put this into practice in the kitchen academy in Alcobendas!! Check out our photo gallery. 

March 7, 2024. OUTREACH EVENT! Our group is at the Madrid es ciencia outreach fair at IFEMA (Madrid, Spain). We showed a plant performing photosynthesis bubbles in the water, how to develop model bio-hybrids based on a board game, and how we can use our research to make solar cells. This activity is part of our outreach mission now! Check out our photo gallery. 

March 6, 2024. INVITED SEMINAR! We presented our work at the IQF Blas Cabrera Institute (Spain) in their internal seminar program. A great opportunity to share our work and establish connections within the Madrid community. We have the opportunity to sign their visitor´s book, where scientists like Marie Curie have left their mark. 

March 1, 2024. WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBER: Angelo Alonzo Beratto (Postdoctoral researcher). Angelo started as a Postdoctoral researcher in our group supported by the Chilean research ministry´s fellowship. We are excited to see you starting this project! Check the Team member section. 

February 28, 2024. CONGRESS ATTENDANCE! We presented our work at the Attochem COST action meeting in Tenerife (Spain). It was an amazing experience presenting our work at a congress outside of our field. A great opportunity to be in contact with many researchers and establish really interesting collaborations! 

February 20, 2024. HIGHLIGHT! Sara is highlighted as a reference scientist in biohybrid development in the FECYT Innovation and Science platform. This platform recognizes the reference scientists in different research areas. Congrats Sara, for this recognition! Click here for more information. 

February 15, 2024. POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP AWARDED TO ATIKUR RAHMAN. Atikur Rahman was awarded a Marie Curie COFOUND postdoctoral grant from the IMDEA´s IDEAL Program to perform his postdoctoral research in our group! This grant will support Atikur to develop artificial photoenzymes based on engineered proteins and chromophores. CONGRATS ATIKUR! We are looking forward to welcoming you to our group.  Go to our funding section to learn more.

February 12, 2024. LAB MOVING! Our group is growing and we are in a bigger lab now! A nice opportunity to clean and organize all the stuff properly. Proud of our work! Now we have a nice space to work on!! Check out our photo gallery

February 8 and 9, 2024. OUTREACH EVEN. Participate on the woman and girl in science day. Sara visited Vedruna de Carabanchel and Gabriel García Marquez high schools in Madrid, showing how facing challenges can shape you. Click here for more information, and check out our photo gallery.

February 1, 2024. FIRST GROUP ANNIVERSARY! One year ago, we started our journey as a group. We set up the lab together, started new projects, and grew as a group! Now we are stronger and have all the energy to show the basic mechanisms of photosynthesis!  Check out our photo gallery 

2023

December 18, 2023. PROJECT FUNDED! César Nombela research grant in the Atracción de Talent program from the Madrid community. The project is to generate nanostructured photosystems that harvest the light in redox active molecules in step-wise mode as a base to generate nano batteries with efficient energy accumulation (200 k Euros). Go to our funding section to learn more.

December 14, 2023. CONGRESS ATTENDANCE. Our group participates in the Early stage researcher´s workshop at IMDEA Nanoscience. Asier, Teresa, and Enrique attended as participants. Claudia and Gonzalo presented they work with a poster. Both defended their work very nicely. CLAUDIA WAS AWARDED THE BEST POSTER PRIZE! Congrats Claudia!! Check out our photo gallery and the media section. 

November 20, 2023. WELCOME OUR NEW GROUP MEMBER:  Asier García (master student). Asier will do his master thesis with us. He is studying a master's in physics of condensed matter and biological systems. We are looking forward to working with you! Check the Team member section. 

November 8, 2023. OUTREACH EVENT.  Our group participates in the science week at IMDEA. We have the opportunity to show our science to high school students from Colegio de Estudiantes! We showed the relevance of our research and how our daily work is, and we even finished with a DNA extraction from a banana fruit! Check our photo gallery.

October 20, 2023. WELCOME OUR NEW GROUP MEMBER:  Teresa Espinosa (master student). Teresa will do her master's thesis in our group. She is studying for a master's on the physics of condensed matter and biological systems. We are looking forward to working with you! Check the Team member section. 

October 17, 2023. POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP AWARDED TO ANGELO ALONZO BERATTO. Angelo Alonzo Beratto was awarded a postdoctoral grant from Chile to perform his postdoctoral research in our group! This grant from the research and development national agency from Chile will support Angelo to work in his project on protein-based surface functionalization. CONGRATS ANGELO!! We are looking forward to welcoming you to our group. Go to our funding section to learn more.

October 15, 2023. WELCOME OUR NEW GROUP MEMBER: Enrique Cristóbal (Bachelor student). Asier will do his bachelor's thesis with us. He is studying for a bachelor's degree in Chemistry. We are looking forward to working with you! Check the Team member section. 

October 1, 2023. WELCOME TO OUR NEW GROUP MEMBERS:  Claudia and Gonzalo have started in the group their PhD thesis! They will continue with us performing research in protein dynamics at engineered model photosystems. Now, as a PhD student. We wish you the best of luck in your research projects! Check the Team member section. 

September 11, 2023. MASTER THESIS DEFENSE! Claudia and Gonzalo defended their master's thesis!! They did great work in the lab and defended it even better!! We are very proud of you! Check out our photo gallery. 

August 29, 2023. CONGRESS ATTENDANCE. We presented our work at the European Photobiology Congress  (ESP) in Lyon (France).  It was a great opportunity to meet people working in photosynthesis and be more aware of the challenges they are facing. We are sure we can solve them by using our model photosystems. Check out our photo gallery. 

August 15, 2023. WELCOME OUR NEW GROUP MEMBER:  Sebastian Mesa (PhD student). Sebastian will do his PhD thesis between the group of Dr. Victor Vega and our group. He will study the effect of protein layers on the photophysical and photochemical properties of 2D materials. We are looking forward to working with you! Check the Team member section.  

July 27, 2023. PROJECT FUNDED! In the Leonardo program from BBVA Foundation. The project is to optimize photochemical conversion based on a strategic combination of engineered proteins and redox-active molecules (40 K Euros). This grant will allow us to explore novel avenues in assembly development for charge accumulation and its use for the efficient generation of solar fuels efficiently at the IMDEA Nanoscience research institute (Madrid, Spain). Go to our funding section to learn more.

June 29, 2023. CONGRESS ATTENDANCE. We present our work at the Spanish Biophysical Society (SBE) Congress in Catalonia (Spain). Sara discusses on the development of model photosystems for studying the function of protein dynamics in photosystem light-harvesting functions. Great opportunity to discuss ideas with the biophysics community. Check out our photo gallery. 

June 9, 2023. Book chapter out! Check out our contribution in protein and peptide inorganic nanoparticles as theranostic vehicles, which is included in the Functional materials in biomedical application book. For the full text, click here.

May 19, 2023. OUTREACH EVENT. Nanociencia to go outreach at IMDEA Nanociencia. Our group participates in the Nanociencia to Go event that brings students from UAM University from the University for Adults program. All the group members made an excellent performance explaining our research and our daily life. We even performed an in situ DNA extraction experiment by extracting the DNA from bananas. We even gave them the extracted DNA as a present! Check out our photo gallery. 

May 9, 2023. PRIZE AWARDED! Sara win the Antalgenics award of the Spanish Society of Biophysics (SBE). For our contributions in photoactive bio-hybrid engineering and photobiology fields. Check our photo gallery. 

April 18, 2023.  CONGRESS ATTENDANCE. We present our work at the dynamic photobiology EMBO workshop.  In a selected talk, Sara discusses the correlation between protein dynamics and photosystems´ light-harvesting functions. Great opportunity to discuss ideas with the photobiology community. 

March 24, 2023. OUTREACH EVENT. The group visited the Madrid es Ciencia science fair at IFEMA. Time to talk with other researchers and research groups and enjoy the science together in this excellent outreach event! Check out our photo gallery. 

March 22, 2023. DIPLOMA AWARD. Sara received a grant diploma from La Caixa Foundation in the 2022 Fellowship Awards Ceremony.   

February 21, 2023. INVITED SEMINAR AT IMDEA NANOSCIENCE. Sara discusses protein-promoted excited state modulation. Opportunity to show our work to the whole IMDEA community. 

February 21, 2023. Our lab is now fully running. We did a group lunch to celebrate together. Now, we are ready to develop interesting research on bio-engineered nanophotonics!  Check out our photo gallery. 

February 10, 2023. OUTREACH EVENT. We visited Zunzunegui BHI High School on the day of Women and Girls in science. In this outreach event, we show how challenges can shape you when you face them. 

February 6, 2023. WELCOME OUR NEW GROUP MEMBER: Upasana Das (research assistant). Upasana has started as a research assistant in our group. We are excited to see you starting this project! Check the Team member section. 

January 15, 2023. WELCOME OUR NEW GROUP MEMBERS: Gonzalo Pérez and Claudia Florez (master students). Gonzalo and Claudia have started as master students in our group. They are studying the master of Biological Science at the University Autonomous of Madrid. We are looking forward to working with you! Check Team member section. 

2022

December 7, 2022. INVITED OUTREACH. Sara was invited seminar in the nanotechnology and nanoscience introductory course for bachelor students in La Coruña (Spain). This initiative was organized by the University of Coruña to introduce first- and second-year students to nanoscience and nanotechnology. Thanks, Moises Canle, for the invitation.

October 7, 2022. PROJECT FUNDED!! In the Ecological and digital transition call by the Spanish Ministry of Science. Our project on sustainable H2 production with new 2D bio-hybrid photocatalysts based on Earth's abundant and environmentally friendly resources has been founded (172k Euros).  Go to our funding section to learn more. 

September 30, 2022. OUTREACH EVENT. Sara participates in La Noche de la Investigación outreach event in Madrid (Spain). Great opportunity to show what we do in the lab to the society in the Caixa Forum (Madrid, Spain).

August 15, 2022. PODCAST RECORDING. Sara was invited to participate in the #UnderTheMicroscope podcast series to talk about our research in the group. To check the recording, click here. 

July 21, 2022. New paper out in JACS. Check out the action mechanism of hydrogenase and polymer dots assembly and its performance for solar-driven hydrogen evolution. For the full text, click here. 

July 17, 2022.  CONGRESS ATTENDANCE. Sara presented at the IUPAC photochemistry symposium in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Sara discusses excited state modulation based on induced protein conformational changes. It is a great opportunity to meet the photochemistry community and share ideas. Check out our photo gallery. 

April 1, 2022. Grant awarded! In the Junior Leader incoming call by La Caixa Foundation. Our project on on-demand photochemical energy conversion in biohybrids with proteins and nanoclusters in synergy is being funded (300 K Euros). This grant gives the support to explore novel research ideas to develop photosystems that perform efficient light conversion at IMDEA Nanoscience research institute (Madrid, Spain). Go to our funding section to know more. 

March 1, 2022. OUTREACH EVENT. Our group is at the Madrid es Ciencia outreach fair at IFEMA (Madrid, Spain). This is a science fair in Madrid (Spain) where different research institutes and universities present scientific approaches. We presented how to make a solar cell and time-resolved resolution of waves!

January 17, 2022. New paper out in Advanced Functional Materials. Discover how designed bio-hybrids can help overcome challenges in the emission performance of deep-red light-emitting diodes. For full text, click here.