Maria Lluch Senar

Dr. Maria Lluch-Senar did her PhD in the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine. During her thesis, she started to work with Mycoplasmas, developing genetic tools and studying cell division and virulence. In 2010, she started as postdoc in the group of Professor Luis Serrano, studying Mycoplasma pneumoniae by Systems Biology approaches. In 2013 she was promoted to staff scientist (associate researcher). She co-coordinates part of the group of Design of Biological Systems, working in Synthetic biology approaches to engineer M. pneumoniae for human therapeutic use. She was involved in the identification of signals to expose and secrete therapeutic proteins by MycoChassis and, in the design and characterization of the two first products that the intended spin-off “Pulmobiotics” aims to develop as proof of concept.
She has long-standing experience in systems and synthetic biology. She published 20 articles, of which 15 in the last 6 years, in international peer-reviewed scientific journals (h-index 11; mostly in journals belonging to Q1, and >50% to D1, of their respective fields). In recognition to her scientific trajectory she received two international awards (Luis Denis Award (2012) and the Derrick Edward Award (2016)). In addition, she was recognized as an independent researcher by getting the Miguel Servet grant (ISCIII, 2016) and she is co-coordinator of a H2020 grant (MycoSynVac), partner in a CSA H2020 grant (BioRobost) and supervisor of EraSynBio (MiniCell).