Skip to content

Dr Luis Martínez Crespo

Dr Luis Martínez Crespo
Assistant lecturer with a PhD
Organic Chemistry

Curriculum

Brief CV

Luis Martínez Crespo graduated in Chemistry in June 2009 from the University of Balearic Islands (UIB). In November 2009, he received a pre-doctoral fellowship (FPI) to work with Prof. A. Costa and Dr. C. Rotger, and he obtained his Master's degree and PhD from UIB. During his PhD he studied the conformational properties of squaramides to use them as peptidomimetics.

From February 2017 to January 2019 Luis worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. P. Ballester in the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), where he studied calix[4]pyrroles as molecular carriers through cell membrane models. This interdisciplinary project in collaboration with Prof. Palacín (molecular biology, Barcelona) permitted to report the first artificial amino acid transporter performing in living cells.

From February 2019 to August 2020 Luis worked at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), as the first postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Dr. H. Valkenier. During this period, Luis expanded his expertise in transmembrane transport and developed a new assay to study bicarbonate transport. Moreover, Luis was involved in international collaborations with Prof. Butler (Loughborough), Prof. Sindelář (Brno) and Prof. Félix (Aveiro).

From September 2020 to August 2022 he worked as a Marie Curie Individual Fellow (salary and research funding) at the University of Manchester (UoM), in the group of Prof. S. J. Webb. The project combined Luis' PhD expertise with that of the host group, exploiting squaramides to create the first molecular communication relay able to work under out-of-equilibrium conditions.

In October 2022 Luis started his current position as a Maria Zambrano Fellow (salary funding) at the UIB. Luis has introduced new methodologies on membrane transport studies in the host group (Supramol). For example, they have described the in-situ photodeactivation of a squaramide transporter. Moreover, Luis has stablished an international collaboration with Dr. K. Helttunen (Jyväskylä) to study their molecules as transporters at UIB.

Luis has co-authored 19 scientific articles and has communicated his main projects to target audiences, in more than 20 conferences, and to the general public, participating in the 'European Researchers Night' and 'Science is Wonderful!' activities. He uses social media to promote his publications and dissemination activities (Twitter: @lmartinezcrespo). He has peer-reviewed several scientific articles and a PhD thesis. He has participated in teaching activities (UIB and UoM) and he has officially co-supervised three Master's projects (ICIQ and ULB).

During his career, Luis has worked in very diverse teams, learning that work ethics and healthy interpersonal relationships are essential factors in a group. He has developed a high level of independence and leadership, being the leader of the main projects in which he has worked (9 articles as first author) and advising several post-graduate students. He has received outstanding training from all the institutions, which has reinforced his communication, self-managing and mentoring skills. He has developed extensive synthetic skills and has acquired vast experience in the use of NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy to perform conformational, binding and transport studies. His research interests focus on Organic and Supramolecular Chemistry, and he aims to stablish his independent research line on artificial transmembrane communication and transport.

Teaching

Office Hours

You need to book a date with the professor in order to attend a tutoring session

Teaching, 5 previous years

Subject Information
21508 - Integrated Laboratory I
21550 - Organic Chemistry for Life Sciences

Research

Research groups

Group Membership type
Supramolecular chemistry (SUPRAMOL) Member
Facebook de la UIB Bluesky de la UIB Linkedin de la UIB Instagram de la UIB Youtube de la UIB Spotify de la UIB
Google+ UIB
Listen