Researches

Permanent, postdoctoral and doctoral researchers

Prof. Antonio de la Hoz

Antonio de la Hoz is Professor in Organic Chemistry in the University of Castilla-La Mancha. He obtained his Ph. D. from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid in 1986 under the supervision of Prof. José Elguero and Carmen Pardo. After postdoctoral research in 1987 with Prof. Mikael Begtrup at the Danmarks Tekniske Høskole he joined the Faculty of Chemistry of the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha in Ciudad Real in 1988 as an Assistant Professor. In 1993 he worked under the supervision Prof. André Loupy in the Université de Paris-Sud in Microwave Assisted Organic Chemistry. Prof. de la Hoz has authored over 200 scientific publications 120 of them related to Microwaves in Organic Synthesis. Dr. de la Hoz has been a foundation member of the Spanish Green Chemistry Network. His current research interests focus on Green methodologies, microwave activation, mechanochemistry, flow methodologies and solvent-free reactions, and the applications of heterocyclic compounds in material and supramolecular chemistry.

Research activities and interests

Development of devices and processes with Green methodologies and conditions: Microwave irradiation, Flow reactions, mechanochemistry

 

Contact: Antonio.Hoz@uclm.es 

Facultad de Ciencias y Tecnologías Químicas, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain. 

Researcher ID Google Schola Scopus ID ORCID iD

 

Antonio

Angel Diaz Ortiz

ÁNGEL DÍAZ ORTIZ

ORCID Code: 0000-0003-1896-9103

Ángel Díaz-Ortiz was born in Tomelloso (La Mancha, Spain). He began his academic training in 1978 and obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1983 from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the Instituto de Química Médica of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in 1988, where he carried out research on nucleoside derivatives with potential antiviral activity, including anti-HIV agents.

After a period in the pharmaceutical industry (Laboratorios Alter S.A.), where he was involved in the development of antihypertensive agents, he joined the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Ciudad Real in late 1989. Since then, he has remained at this institution, attaining the position of Full Professor in 2010.

Over the years, his research activity has encompassed various areas of chemical science, including ultrasound-assisted reactions, microwave-assisted synthesis (as part of one of the most active team in Europe, including the design of several microwave reactors operating at 915 or 2450 MHz), sustainable chemistry, novel materials with photoelectronic applications, and the development of innovative flow chemistry methodologies.

He has also been deeply engaged in knowledge transfer, having participated in 17 collaborative projects with chemical and pharmaceutical industries—acting as co-principal investigator in nearly all of them—with companies such as Repsol, Alter, Algry, Organon (France), Rymsa, Sairem Ibérica and Janssen-Cilag, among others.

Professor Díaz-Ortiz has co-authored 115 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 10 book chapters, and co-edited one book (Flow Chemistry in Drug Discovery, Springer, 2021). His current h-index is 37 (Scopus), and his i10-index is 98 with 7,218 citations (Google Scholar). He has participated in 41 national and regional research projects—acting as principal investigator in 6 of them—and has taken part in one European project. He has supervised seven doctoral theses.

Angel

Ana Maria Garcia Fernandez

 

Ana M. García Fernández acquired her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) in 2011, with First Class Honors. She obtained her PhD in organic chemistry from the Complutense University (Madrid, Spain) in 2015, under the supervision of Prof. Martínez and Prof. Gil, focused on the design, synthesis and evaluation of phosphodiesterases inhibitors as novel potential drugs for the treatment of central nervous system disorders. During her PhD, she did two short stays: for the first, she joined Professor Luque’s group at the University of Barcelona in 2013 to perform molecular modeling and docking studies. In 2014, during her second stay, she spent five months with the group of Prof. Bräse (KIT, Germany) thanks to a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
In 2016, she joined the group of Prof. Marchesan in Trieste (Italy) as postdoctoral researcher, where she worked on ultrashort heterochiral peptides that self-assemble into supramolecular hydrogels. During that period, she secured funding for two years, in the form of a Ramón Areces Foundation fellowship, to investigate the potential of those heterochiral peptides to interfere with the formation of pathological amyloids involved in pathologies as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. In January 2019, she joined the group of Dr. Torbeev in the Institute of Supramolecular Science and Engineering (ISIS) at the University of Strasbourg in France. Her research was focused on the chemical synthesis of intrinsically disordered polypeptides to study their supramolecular self-assembly and aggregation into amyloids.
In September 2020, she moved to the Charles Sadron Institute (ICS) at the same university, to join the group of Dr. Ruiz-Carretero. In this group, she worked in the synthesis and supramolecular characterization of self-assembled materials made of chiral, H-bonded pi-conjugated molecules appended with α-amino acids, to understand the role of chirality in organic electronics.
In January 2022, she joined the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Faculty of Chemical Sciences and Engineering / IRICA) as a María Zambrano Fellow to study the self-assembly of peptide-based materials for the development of optical waveguiding systems. That same year, she was awarded a regional reintegration project funded by JCCM (SBPLY/21/180225/000088). In January 2025, she started her position as a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the same university. In the same year, she was awarded two research projects as Principal Investigator: a regional project (PJI, JCCM, SBPLY/24/180225/000086) and national Type A project (PID2024-160195NA-I00), funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI), as co-PI with Dr. Daniel Iglesias. In 2025 se has also received the price for "Young Researchers" by "Sección Territorial de Castilla-La Mancha de la Real Sociedad Española de Química (STCL-RSEQ). She is also one of the Management Committee (MC) member for Spain in the COST Action CA23111 “Searching for Nanostructured or pOre fOrming Peptides for therapY”, aimed at fostering collaborations with international groups in the field of peptide self-assembly. Her current research focuses on the self-assembly of short peptides and other organic molecules to develop hydrogels and functional materials, particularly for supramolecular catalysis. In addition, she is interested in exploring different self-assembly stimuli to design transient systems based on dynamic supramolecular materials.

 
e-mail. AnaM.garcia@uclm.es Av. Camilo Jose Cela 10. 13071 Ciudad Real
Ana M García

Jose Ramon Carrillo

José Ramón Carrillo Muñoz was born on June 15th 1960 in Ciudad Real (Spain). In June 1982 she obtained his degree in Chemistry at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, He obtained his Ph. D. from the Universidad of Castilla-La Mancha in 1993 under the supervision of Prof. Enrique Díez-Barra. He completed a predoctoral stay in 1992 and a postdoctoral stay during the 1993-94 academic year at the Université the Paris-Sud, both under the supervision of Professor André Loupy.

Since 1983 he is Assistant Professor in the School of Agricultural Engineers of  Castilla-La Mancha.

His current investigation is mainly focused in Development of new materials under microwave together with the employed environmentally friendly chemical process and Computational Chemistry.

 

Contact:

JoseRamon.Carrillo@uclm.es

JR

Maria Pilar Prieto

Pilar Prieto is Full Professor at UCLM since 2019 and currently leads the MSOC-Organic Photonic-NMR research group.

She graduated in Chemistry from UCM (Madrid) in 1989, completing two-month internships at BASF (Germany) from 1986 to 1988 through scholarships. In 1990, she started her research career at the Institute of Medical Chemistry (CSIC, Madrid) with support from Eli Lilly. Moving to UCLM in 1991, she earned her PhD at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences and Technologies, with a brief stay at the University of South Paris (1994) and two short postdoctoral stays at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (1996-1997), one funded by DAAD. Her research during these years focused on sustainable organic synthesis, particularly using microwave irradiation.

Later, she held a postdoctoral position at UPV (1997-1998), specializing in Computational Chemistry, complemented by short stays at the Institute of Medicinal Chemistry (CSIC) and UPV. Returning to UCLM, she joined the MSOC group and led computational studies on microwave-assisted organic reactions, becoming a founding member of the UCLM Supercomputing Service.

From 2012, she has led research on the design and synthesis of organic supramolecular materials for electronic and photonic applications, especially waveguiding properties. This work has been funded by 5 projects as principal investigator, including MICINN (PID2020-119636GB-I00 and PID2023-152323NB-I00) (2021-2024, 2024-2027), JCCM/FEDER projects (SBPLY/17/180501/000189 and SBPLY/21/180501/000114) (2018-2021, 2022-2025) and UCLM’s project (2022-GRIN-34310) (2023-2025). She has also participated in a national network on Supramolecular Functional Materials (RED2018-102331-T).

Prieto has supervised 7 PhD theses, two of which received the best thesis award by STCLM-RSEQ, and she currently supervises 3 more PhD students. She has secured 11 competitive programs for student supervision, including 8 PhD scholarships (6 FPU, 2 JCCM), one postdoctoral researcher, and two technician positions. Many of her doctoral students have achieved significant recognition in the research community.

Over her career, Prieto has published 94 scientific articles (44 as principal author) and co-authored 16 book chapters (9 research-focused and 7 educational). She has also contributed to 36 research projects and 11 infrastructure projects via competitive calls. As part of the AEI pool of experts, she has served as an external evaluator for ANECA and UPV/EHU infrastructure grants and sits on UCLM's DOCENTIA evaluation subcommittee, additionally reviewing ACS projects and a lot of journal articles.

In outreach, Prieto is the spokesperson for STCM-RSEQ and coordinates the Ciudad Real campus for the Chemistry Olympiad's Regional Phase (since 2019). She organized ARGACIENCIA, an outreach event, and contributed to Science Week (V to X editions) and Women and Girls in Science activities. From 2007 to 2009, she coordinated high school student access to the University.

Prieto has taught courses in the Department of Organic Chemistry since 1992 and has been involved in 12 teaching innovation projects.

Contact info:

MaríaPilar.Prieto@uclm.es  / Edificio Marie Curie – Avda. Camilo José Cela s/n – 13071 Ciudad Real /

Phone. 926295300 Ext. 3487

ORCID

Pilar Prieto

M. Victoria Gómez

Mª Victoria Gómez Almagro (1978) is currently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences and Chemical Technologies (UCLM). She obtained her degree in Chemistry (2001) with an honour additional at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM). In 2006 she got her PhD (title of Chemistry European Doctor (cum Laude)). She carried out her PhD (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia fellowship, FPU) at UCLM with a titled “Use of microwave irradiation and heterogeneous catalysis in environmentally friendly chemistry” under the supervision of Dr. Andres Moreno and Prof. Antonio de la Hoz. During her PhD, she joined to the group of Prof. George Fleet from Oxford University (UK) under the supervision of Dr. Tim Claridge, and to the group of Dr. Avelino Corma from Instituto de Tecnologia Química de Valencia (Spain) as two brief predoctoral stays.

She spent more than two years (August 2006-November 2008) at the Supramolecular Chemistry and Technology group of Prof. David Reinhoudt (University of Twente, The Netherlands) as postdoc researcher- Marie Curie Intraeuropean Fellowship (EIF) -, at the NMR & MS department under the supervision of Dr. Aldrik Velders. The Project involved the research, design and development of NMR probes with microfluidic and nanofluidic components. In February 2009, she continued her research at the Instituto Regional de Investigación Cientifica Aplicada (IRICA) (UCLM) ,  starting with the development of a project awarded by the European Commission -Marie Curie Reintegration program (ERG) – what allowed her to start a new research line within the group of “Microwave and Suistanable Organic Chemistry” (UCLM) which still continues nowadays.

In 2019, she was awarded with the Young Researcher Prize from the Spanish Royal Society (RSEQ), Castilla-La Mancha section.

 

Her main research interest is the development of technology with the use of reduced-diameter microcoils, mainly solenoidal (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02575-0) and planar spiral (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4025), focused on enhancing the sensitivity of NMR spectroscopy. Radiofrequency microcoils represent an efficient and cheap alternative to enhance the sensitivity of NMR for mass-limited samples. In addition, the use of hyperpolarization schemes as photo-Chemically Induced Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (photo-CIDNP) combined to microcoils has enabled to increase the NMR sensitivity to unprecedented limits (see Figure) opening the window for new applications. This research topic is developed in collaboration to the group of Prof. Dr. Aldrik Velders (BioNanotechnology group) from University of Wageningen (the Netherlands).

 CIDNP

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

Figure: photo-CIDNP in microcoils for signal enhancement enabling the detection of sub-picomole of material by NMR spectroscopy (Nat. Commun. 9, Article number: 108 (2018))


She is also focused on using NMR as a powerful tool to provide structural information about different phenomena, not only within the group but also in collaboration with other universities or companies. Her research in this field is related to four main different fields: (photo)-Flow Chemistry, photo-illuminated in-situ NMR monitoring, Diffusion NMR and Metabolomics.

 

MariaVictoria.Gomez@uclm.es/ Edificio Marie Curie – Avda. Camilo José Cela s/n – 13071 Ciudad Real / ORCID iD

Victoria Gómez

Aldrik Velders

Aldrik Velders (1970) studied Chemistry at the University of Utrecht (NL) with Prof. Blasse and Prof. Andries Meijerink, and at the Universityof Pavia(I) with Prof. Luigi Fabbrizzi. In 1995 he started as graduate student at the University of Leiden (NL) on antitumor chemistry with Prof. Jan Reedijk, was visiting scientist in the group of Prof. Enzo Alessio in Trieste(I), and obtained his PhD degree in 2000 with the thesis Ruthenium Complexes with Heterocyclic Nitrogen Ligands. He spent his post-doc years at the Centre for Magnetic Resonance under guidance of Prof. Bertini and Prof. Luchinat (Florence, I) and as Marie Curie Fellow at Molteni Farmaceutici (Scandicci, I). In 2004 he started as assistant professor in the SupraMolecular Chemistry and Technology group of prof. David Reinhoudt at theUniversity of Twente, also heading the NMR & MS department. Since 2009 he is associate professor and currently in the BioMedical Chemistry group. His research interests go from (dynamic) supramolecular chemistry in solution and on (flat, fluidic and functional nanoparticle) surfaces, to (bio)nanotechnological applications of microfluidics, fluorescence and NMR spectroscopy. He recently moved to Wageningen University where he is the chair of BioNanoTechnology group and  has a major research line focused on further continuing to develop microfluidic NMR hardware and Nano-NMR spectroscopy. In July 2011, the management board of the University of Castilla-La Mancha approved the entitlement of “profesor colaborador honorifico”, allowing him to become member of the Microwave and Sustainable Organic Chemistry group. Since July 2013 he is the director of the Wageningen Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre (WNMRC).

 Research interests as a member of the MSOC group.

One of my major areas of interests regards “Nano NMR Spectroscopy”. NMR  spectroscopy is among the most powerful analytical tools developed in the last century, but it has, yet, only played a minor role in the emerging fields of micro- and nanotechnology. NMR spectroscopy is nevertheless a powerful tool also in these new research areas, which for example we have exploited for the analysis of nanoparticles and nanoliter sample volumes.

Non-functionalized nanoparticles are notoriously hard to characterize, but in collaboration with prof. Richard Crooks from the University of Texas at Austin (TX, USA) some useful strategies have been developed. In particular, we have used high-resolution solution-state NMR spectroscopy to characterize the structure of non-functionalized Pd dendrimer-encapsulated nanoparticles (DENs). Hereto, first, a full analysis was done of the homo- and heteronuclear 1D and 2D NMR data of the fourth-generation hydroxyl-terminated poly(amidoamine), PAMAM, dendrimer (G4‑OH), which is a 15 kDa macromolecule containing over a 1000 protons that show severely overlapping signals due to the high (pseudo-)symmetry. Analyzing G4‑OH(Pd55) DENs by 1H and diffusion-ordered NMR spectroscopy then unambiguously demonstrates that single nanoparticles are encapsulated within individual dendrimers.[1] Consecutively, simple 1D 1H‑NMR data of Pd nanoparticles encapsulated within sixth-generation hydroxyl-terminated PAMAM (a 60 kDa dendrimer) allows determination of the size of Pd DENs (G6-OH(Pdx)) ranging from 55, 147, 200 to 250 atoms. Solution-state 1H NMR spectroscopy thus provides a straightforward tool to characterize nanometer-size nanoparticles,[2] where otherwise advanced and less accessible techniques, e.g. TEM, have to be used, that moreover only provide sampled and ex-situ data.

Analysis of mass-limited samples with NMR spectroscopy remains a major challenge, which has triggered the development of expensive and technologically demanding solutions as cryogenically cooled coils in so-called cryoprobes and hyperpolarization strategies.  A relatively cheap alternative approach regards the use of miniaturized coils and, over the past two decades, microcoils of different geometries have in fact proven to be a successful sensitivity enhancement strategy.[3] We are particularly interested in microfluidic chip designs with planar spiral coils and detection volumes in the lower nanoliter range. These NMR chips have proven to be very efficient for on-flow reaction monitoring studies by 1H NMR spectroscopy, optimizing reaction conditions utilizing only minute amounts of starting material and solvents.[4] Alternatively, under static conditions also supramolecular interactions can be investigated as proven by a 19F NMR study on the interaction of hexafluorophosphate anions with cyclodextrin host molecules.[5] We are currently exploring the use of the microcoil-on-a-chip concept for low-gamma nuclides as well, and integrate the chips in more complicated hyphenated microfluidic set ups.

Selected References:

[1] M.V. Gomez, J. Guerra, A.H. Velders, R.M. Crooks, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 341–350 (2009). [2] M.V. Gomez, J. Guerra, V.S. Myers, R.M. Crooks, A.H. Velders, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 14634–14635 (2009). [3] R. M. Fratila, A. H. Velders, Annu. Rev. Anal. Chem. 2011, 227-249 [4] M.V. Gomez, H.J.J. Verputten, A. Díaz-Ortíz, A. Moreno, A. de la Hoz, A.H. Velders, Chem. Commun. 2010, 4514-4516 [5] M. V. Gómez, D. N. Reinhoudt, A. H. Velders, Small 2008, 4, 1293-1295.

 

ORCID iD

Aldrik