I am a chemist with a vivid curiosity about biological phenomena and their interface with chemistry and physics. During my bachelor I was interested on the physical chemical basis of the protein crystallization phenomenon and studied the influence of electric fields to enhance molecular packing and crystal quality. On an early stage of my PhD I was focused on the rational design of chimerical variants of TIM barrel enzymes with enhanced stability. At a later stage, I highlighted the importance of protein flexibility on the susceptibility of proteins to aggregate and I described a new quantitative parameter of proteins called thermal flexibility. This concept proposes that proteins with a higher stability have a wider conformational space available when thermal energy is provided, which means that energy can be stored in many more microstates than a protein with a lower stability. This fact confers the protein with a large resilience to thermal changes. I developed this concept during my PhD to explain the differences in stability of TIM proteins, but since its publication in a Q1 journal, thermal flexibility has been cited for other research groups as a possible cause of the thermostability of different kind of proteins, such as phytases, k-like proteases, serum amyloid A and globins. I obtained my degrees with honors from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and obtained grants from the Mexican Government during all stages of my career.

After my PhD, I assumed a job as a project manager to conduct outreach activities (www.redproteinas.com) while continuing doing research as a collaborator of research groups in Mexico and USA. In November 2018 I was granted by the Mexican Government to join an interdisciplinary team at the Cell Structure and Dynamics at the University of Lisbon in Portugal. Here I am aligning my expertise on protein interactions and stability with my aims to contribute to cellular models of protein aggregation and neurodegeneration. I have co-authored two peer-reviewed papers and published a book chapter and two research papers as a first author, one of them also as a co-corresponding author. My research is focused on finding key molecular interactions governing protein aggregation and disease using an interdisciplinary approach from computational simulations to molecular biology and live cell imaging.