Prof. Emilio M. Pérez is the Director of IMDEA Nanociencia. His scientific trajectory is defined by the development of unconventional chemical tools to modify and understand low-dimensional materials. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Prof. David Leigh, and a postdoctoral stay at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid with Prof. Nazario Martín, he joined IMDEA Nanociencia in 2008 as a Ramón y Cajal Researcher, eventually climbing through the ranks to lead the Institute.

Dr. Pérez’s work has been supported by the European Research Council (Starting and Proof of Concept grants) and recognized with numerous distinctions, including the IUPAC Prize for Young Chemists, the Miguel Catalán Award, and the 2024 RSEQ Prize for Excellence in Research. He is consistently ranked among the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University.

Sitting at the vibrant intersection of supramolecular chemistry and materials science, his research program is built on three fundamental pillars:

• Mechanically Interlocked Nanostructures: He pioneered the use of the mechanical bond on carbon nanotubes, creating a new class of materials known as MINTs.
• 2D Materials and Heterostructures: Developing improved methods for the liquid-phase exfoliation of ultrathin materials and their chemical functionalization, for their integration into functioning optoelectronic devices.
• Fundamental Supramolecular Chemistry: Utilizing optical tweezers single-molecule force spectroscopy to measure and understand the non-covalent forces that govern molecular recognition.

Alejandro López obtained his BSc (2011) from the Universidad de Salamanca. In September 2012 he joined the group of Prof. Emilio Pérez at IMDEA Nanoscience and he obtained his MSc from UNED in 2014. In 2015 he carried out also a predoctoral stay at the CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze in Lecce, Italy working under the supervision of Professor Dario Pisignano on the preparation of polymeric fibers. In January 2017 he obtained his Ph.D. Then he joined the group of Prof. Naoki Komatsu at Kyoto University as a JSPS postdoctoral working on supramolecular chemistry and exohedral functionalization of carbon nanostructures. In July 2019 he joined Dr. Gimenez-López´s group at CIQUS (Santiago de Compostela) to work in the controlled assembly in complex functional carbon nanostructures. In September 2019 he received a Juan de la Cierva fellowship. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral researcher at IMDEA with Prof. Emilio M. Pérez.

Natalia Martín Sabanés obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the Autónoma University of Madrid in 2011 and her Master’s degree in Biomedical Physics in 2013. She completed her PhD in 2018 at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, Germany), where she developed the first electrochemical tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (EC-TERS) setup in Europe under the supervision of Prof. Katrin Domke. She subsequently joined the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (Berlin) as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Melanie Müller and Prof. Martin Wolf, where she developed a THz-gated ultrafast scanning tunneling microscope achieving record temporal resolution.

In 2020, she returned to Madrid as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at IMDEA Nanociencia, where she expanded her research to single-molecule force spectroscopy using optical tweezers under the supervision of Prof. Emilio Pérez. In 2024, she was awarded both a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship and a La Caixa Junior Leader Fellowship.

Her research focuses on the development of advanced hybrid instruments that integrate near-field spectroscopy and single-molecule techniques to investigate physicochemical processes with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. She has also established research lines on the advanced spectroscopic characterization of nanomaterials, particularly two-dimensional (2D) materials.

Gloria Tobajas Curiel graduated with a Pharmacy degree (MPharm) from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2015, which was followed by an MSc in Drug Discovery where she worked on the synthesis of small molecules structurally related to natural polyphenols at Instituto de Química Médica (IQM-CSIC). Prior to the beginning of her PhD, she was awarded a fellowship sponsored by Fundación Universidad-Empresa (FUE) to join Janssen Pharma as a medicinal chemist. Between 2018-2023, she carried out her PhD studies in the group of Chris Hunter at the University of Cambridge where she investigated non-covalent interactions in synthetic and biological systems.

Gloria’s current research interests lie in the understanding of the relationship between structure and function in chemistry, biology, and material sciences through the systematic study of molecular recognition. In late 2023, she joined the group of Emilio Pérez at IMDEA Nanociencia as a postdoctoral researcher to work on the characterisation of non-covalent chemistries under non-equilibrium conditions using single-molecule force spectroscopy techniques.

G. Tobajas-Curiel, Q. Sun, J. K. M. Sanders, P. Ballester, C. A. Hunter. Solvation Rules: Aromatic Interactions Outcompete Cation-π Interactions in Synthetic Host-Guest Complexes in Water. Chem. Comm., 2023, 59, 14146-14148.

G. Tobajas-Curiel, Q. Sun, J. K. M. Sanders, P. Ballester, C. A. Hunter. Aromatic Interactions with Heterocycles in Water. Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 11131-11140.

G. Tobajas-Curiel, Q. Sun, J. K. M. Sanders, P. Ballester, C. A. Hunter. Substituent Effects on Aromatic Interactions in Water. Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 6226-6236.

D. Quaglio, N. Zhdanovskaya, G. Tobajas, V. Cuartas, S. Balducci, M.S. Christodoulou, G. Fabrizi, M. Gargantilla, E. M. Priego, A. Carmona-Pestaña, D. Passarella, I. Screpanti, B. Botta, R. Palermo, M. Mori, F. Ghirga, M. J. Peŕez-Peŕez. Chalcones and Chalcone-mimetic Derivatives as Notch Inhibitors in a Model of T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. ACS Med. Chem. Lett., 2019, 10, 639-643.

O. Bueno, G. Tobajas, E. Quesada, J. Estévez-Gallego, S. Noppen, M. J. Camarasa, J. F. Díaz, S. Liekens, E. M. Priego, M. J. Pérez-Pérez. Conformational mimetics of the α-methyl chalcone TUB091 binding tubulin: Design, synthesis and antiproliferative activity. Eur. J. Med. Chem., 2018, 148, 337-348.

Zulay D. Pardo-Botero obtained a B.S in Chemistry in 2006 from Universidad del Valle (Colombia). Then, she moved to Madrid where she enrolled at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and received a M.S. in Organic Synthesis in 2009 and a Ph.D. in 2014. She joined the group of Prof. Antonio Herrera and Roberto Martínez-Álvarez where her work was focused on the development and optimization of ultrafast NMR pulse sequences, to monitor organic reactions in real-time. Additionally, in 2010 she was a visiting scholar at The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel under the guidance of Prof. Lucio Frydman.

In 2016, she joined IMDEA Nanociencia as an Instrument Scientist responsible for the NMR Service and Chemical Facilities for Molecular Analysis and Characterization Laboratory. Currently, she is also in charge of the implementation of a Quality Management System based on ISO 9001:2015 at the Nanomaterials Characterization Service under the guidance of Prof. Emilio M. Pérez.

Silvia Miranda obtained her bachelor and master degree in Organic Chemistry at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). During this period, she joined the group of Prof. Antonio Garcia Martinez where she has acquired experience in the field of organic synthesis. Particularly, she has synthesized chiral ligands to perform asymmetric catalysis. In 2019, She received her PhD in Organic Chemistry from University of Alcala, Spain. She worked under the direction of  Drs. José Cristóbal López and Ana María Gómez (CSIC), where her work thesis focused in a carbohydrate chemistry area; paying special attention to the development of new methodologies in organic synthesis. In summer on 2013, she carried through a short stay in University of Bristol for 3 months, under the supervision of Dr. Carmen Galán.

Currently, She is part of  Dr. Emilio Pérez's “Low Dimensional Materials Chemistry” group to contribute her experience in organic synthesis, developing and supporting different synthetic projects.

Dean Milanović obtained his BSc degree in Chemistry from the University of Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 2020.

In 2023, he completed his MSc degree at the same university, with a focus on Environmental Science under the supervision of Prof. Pero Dugić. Alongside his studies, he worked for one year as a Chemical Analyst at the Public Health Institute of the Republic of Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and briefly joined the Maulide group at the University of Vienna (Austria), where he gained experience in organic synthesis.

He is currently a PhD student at IMDEA Nanociencia, working in the group of Emilio Pérez, with a primary research focus on single-walled carbon nanotube derivatives.