Irene Gutiérrez

 

She graduated in Chemical Engineer at the Polytechnique University of Madrid (2012).

She received her Master degree at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid working at the Optical Nanomanipulation Lab (2012-2013). During that time, she focused on analyzing the sequence-dependent elastic response of dsDNA and dsRNA.

Then she continued her PhD in our laboratory studying the mechanical unfolding of RNA G-quadruplexes by both optical tweezers and AFM.

In 2015, she was awarded the best oral presentation in poster format at the XV International Conference of the Spanish Bio-physical Society (SBE). In 2017, Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna (Austria), for her postdoct.

Thesis: The folding complexity of TERRA G-quadruplex unveiled at the single-molecule level [pdf].

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain (September, 2017)

 

Silvia Hormeño

 

Current position: Postdoctoral researcher at the Madrid Institute of Microelectronics-CSIC.

Dr. Hormeño joined the Optical Nanomanipulation Lab in 2004 for her PhD thesis. She performed single-molecule stretching experiments to understand the mechanical basis of A and B forms and developed the optical trapping of individual centrosomes to study their electrophysiological behavior. From 2010 to 2011 she continued her research in our lab manipulating biofunctional nanoparticles in collaboration with Dr. B. H. Juárez, at IMDEA Nanoscience. In 2012, she moved to the IMM-CSIC for her second postdoc.

Thesis: Biophysics of centrosomes and DNA studied by optical manipulation [pdf].

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain (May, 2010)

Awarded the best Ph.D thesis in the area of Life Sciences by the Spanish Society of Microscopy, SME (September, 2011).

 

Elías Herrero-Galán

 

Current position: Postdoc at the CNIC, Madrid

Elías Herrero-Galán joined the Optical Nanomanipulation lab for his postdoctoral resesearch in 2009. He investigated the mechanical properties of double stranded RNA. To that end, he prepared DNA and RNA molecules of identical sequence and stretched them by optical tweezers. His studies, which combined calorimetric analysis, AFM and magnetic tweezers, lead to a general understanding of the structural basis of the different DNA and RNA mechanical properties. He completed his research in our lab collaborating in the study of the mechanical unfolding of RNA G-quadruplexes. In 2011 he continued his research at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología-CSIC and in 2014 he moved to the CNIC in Madrid.