Team
Our multidisciplinary team integrates collectively several decades of research experience in the Pharma and Biotech industry, ensuring the application of industry standards of quality, efficiency, transparency and commitment to respond to the objectives of our partners.
Management
| Olga Genilloud obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry (Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, 1988) from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, Spain. She has an extended research experience in the academic environment from her work in the biosynthesis of antibiotic peptides (Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Madrid 1984-1988; Harvard Medical School, Boston, 1987). In 1989 she joined the Centro de Investigación Básica de España (CIBE), at Merck Sharp and Dohme in Spain, developing for 19 years leading positions in the discovery of bacterial natural products, 10 years as Head of the Bacterial Microbiology Group. In February 2009 she was appointed Scientific Director of Fundación MEDINA where she leads the research center research and the international opportunities with academic and industrial sectors, and heads the Microbiology Department. She has extended experience in the coordination of multidisciplinary teams, and management of international research programs and collaborations. She has an extended list of publications, with more than 100 peer reviewed articles and book chapters, and 18 patents derived from her contributions to the discovery of novel compounds and the development of new molecular tools in Natural Products research. |
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| Diego Pozas obtained a Bachelor Degree in Economics from the University of Granada, and a National Diploma in Business Administration and International Marketing in Ireland. He has experience in marketing and IT consultancy in several companies of different sectors in Spain. In the last years, he had positions in SME’s management, being especially focused on the strategic and financial management, business development, launching of new products and brands in Europe and USA, professional services, consumer goods and food and beverage companies. His financial background and marketing skills give him a broad vision in business administration. |
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| Fernando Reyes received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Granada in 1995 and did a post-doctoral stage with Prof. Chris Abell at the University of Cambridge focused on the synthesis of potential inhibitors of the shikimate and pantothenate pathways. Over the last 18 years, he has conducted research on the isolation and structural elucidation of bioactive natural products for companies and institutions such as Smithkline Beecham, PharmaMar and MEDINA, with a special contribution to the isolation of marine bioactive metabolites, including PM184 currently in Phase II breast cancer clinical trials at Pharmamar. He joined MEDINA in September 2010 as Head of the Chemistry Department to lead the isolation and structural characterization of bioactive metabolites from microbial sources, and the development of new fast dereplication strategies for natural products known compounds. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, two book chapters, and is named inventor in 14 international patents. |
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| Rosario Fernández Godino obtained her Ph.D. in Biology (Genetics and Cellular Biology) in 2009 from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. She spent one year as a postdoctoral researcher at INIA (Madrid, Spain) and one year at the Medical Genome Project (Seville, Spain). In 2011, Chari moved to Boston, USA, to work as a researcher at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, where she was promoted to Faculty in 2016, and to Assistant Professor in 2020. As an independent researcher at Harvard, she created a unique cell-based platform to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying eye diseases, including age-related macular degeneration. She was also the founder and director of the iPSC Center at the Ocular Genomics Institute of Harvard Medical School. Her over 10-year research at Harvard resulted in several high-impact peer-reviewed publications. In 2021, Chari was recruited by the biotech company Intergalactic Therapeutics (Boston, USA) to direct the Retina Drug Discovery Team, where she was a crucial contributor to advance the development of non-viral gene therapy for eye diseases. In September 2022, she was appointed Head of Screening and Target Validation at Fundación MEDINA, where she leads multidisciplinary teams and manages international research programs and collaborations. |
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Chemistry
| José Rubén Tormo obtained his PhD in Pharmacy, worked for Merck Sharp and Dohme and Valentia BioPharma gaining international experience in the design and implementation of global standard operation procedures for pharmaceutical and biotechnology screening laboratories. His wide professional and academic knowledge in biology, biochemistry, natural product chemistry, pharmacology, screening and automation position him as the Collection management expert at MEDINA. |
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| Jesús Martín obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and worked for Merck Sharp and Dohme de España and at Merck & Co. research center in Rahway, New Jersey (USA). He joined MEDINA in 2009 as head of the natural product de-replication. He is a specialist in MS interpretation, LC-MS instrumentalist, software development, databases maintenance and scientific data mining with a broad knowledge of programming and instrument integration. |
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| Ignacio Pérez-Victoria obtained his PhD in Chemistry and Advanced Studies Diploma in Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry. He worked for Puleva Biotech and for the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine “López-Neyra". He had post-doctoral positions at the University of Twente (Netherlands) and the Chemistry Department of the University of Oxford. |
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Javier Ortiz obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, he has over 12 years of R&D experience in drug discovery, organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, computational chemistry and natural product chemistry and a strong background in organic synthesis, modern analytical spectroscopic techniques, High Througput chemistry and bioconjugate chemistry. |
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| Gloria Crespo acquired her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and has 11 years of experience in Natural Product Chemistry. She worked previously at Pharmamar and at MEDINA she is specialist in the isolation, purification and structural elucidation of bioactive natural products. She is currently developing her PhD Thesis, and she is coauthor of 3 patents and several congress posters and publications. |
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Microbiology
| Ignacio González has a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a Master degree in Microbiology. He worked for Merck, Sharp & Dohme de España at the Basic Research Centre (CIBE), developing a extended expertise in microbiological techniques, gas chromatography, PCR fingerprinting, DNA sequencing analysis, and biochemical and microbiological assays. He is coauthor of 11 papers, 1 patent and 21 congress posters. |
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| Daniel Oves obtained his PhD in chemistry, has over 10 years of experience in the chemistry and biology of natural products, worked with Prof. Challis' group at the University of Warwick (UK) on the characterization of microbial secondary metabolite pathways. He is expert in developing approaches to unleash the biosynthetic potential of actinomycetes. He is coauthor of 13 papers and 2 book chapters. |
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| Marina Sánchez, obtained her PhD in Microbiology. After working in Dr. Maqueda’s Lab at the University of Granada, and with Prof. Salas’ group at the University of Oviedo, she specialized in Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Metagenomics, Antimicrobial compounds, Proteomics. She leads the microbial genome mining approaches for the discovery of secondary metabolites at MEDINA, and she is also coauthor of 13 papers and 2 book chapters. |
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| Víctor González-Menéndez obtained his PhD in Pharmacy from University of Granada in 2019. He has a BSc Degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of León, Spain, a MSc degree in Drug Research, Development, Control and Innovation from the University of Granada, and a degree in advanced mycology from the International University of Andalucía. He joined Fundación MEDINA in 2010, and currently he is Senior Scientist at the Microbiology Department and Manager of the Fungal Collection. He is responsible of the identification and isolation of new fungi, and especially in the scale-up fermentation, metabolomic and phylogenetic analysis of fungal communities. He is focused on developing fungal phytopathogens biocontrol assays to discover new potential biopesticides from microbial natural products. He is coauthor of more than 40 papers, 5 patents and many oral and poster communications. |
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| Rachel Serrano has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology by the University of Alicante and obtained a MSc in Drug Research, Development, Control and Innovation from the University of Granada. She joined MEDINA in 2015 due to an internship and is currently developing his PhD Thesis. She is specialized in the development and miniaturization of biocontrol assays against fungal phytopathogens, and she is author of several posters and publications. |
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Screening
| Carmen Ramos obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Autonomous University of Madrid where she worked in Centre of Molecular Biology “Severo Ochoa” (UAM/CSIC) on the molecular basis of neurodegenerative diseases. Subsequently, she worked for nine years at Neuron Bio, generating research cell models in neurodegeneratives diseases for discovering new drugs and targets. At MEDINA, she is developing drug screening programs in the field of neuronal diseases, efficacy studies and target validation in vitro and in vivo. |
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| Mercedes de la Cruz Moreno has a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry and worked for Merck Sharp and Dohme de España where she contributed actively to the discovery of new antibiotics. She is responsible for both agar and liquid antimicrobial assay formats at MEDINA. She is co-author of 21 scientific publications and 29 scientific posters and presentations. |
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| Francisco Castillo obtained his PhD in Physical chemistry applied to protein folding and interaction with ligands at the University of Granada, where he studied the molecular basis of viral budding and the design of broad-spectrum antivirals (2009-2016). Subsequently, he worked in a Cancer Research UK project (2016-2018, Southampton, United Kingdom) generating high-throughput screening platforms and potency assays, transferring such know-how later on to the preclinical CMC development at the startup Peptomyc SL (Barcelona, Vall d´ Hebron Institute of Oncology, 2018-2019). Currently he is developing drug screening platforms at the protein-protein interaction level on viral and cancer models for MEDINA. |
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| Caridad Díaz has a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and Biology, she is specialized in the development of analytical methods for liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. She also has a broad experience in drug discovery and preclinical safety and has achieved great knowledge in metabolomic analysis. |
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| Pilar Sánchez has a Bachelor´s degree in Chemistry, and joined MEDINA in 2013. She has previous experience in Microbiology, Biotechnology and Immunology working at the Clinical Hospital of Granada, Agri-food Laboratory and Fibao. |
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| Thomas A. Mackenzie has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and an MS in Regenerative Biomedicine. He joined MEDINA in 2016 due to an internship and is currently developing his PhD Thesis. He is specialized in the development, miniaturization and automation of cellular and enzymatic assays applied to the drug discovery field. |
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IT
| Germán Martínez obtained his degree in Information Technology at the University of Cáceres, worked on projects aimed at large companies such as Telefónica I+D, Endesa and Acciona, acquiring an extensive experience in designing applications and improving existing systems. |
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Administration
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Teresa Sánchez obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, she spent a year at the University of Hes–Iser in Rotterdam, worked for PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and for the EASP (Andalusian Public Health School). She is specialized in auditing, business planning, financial management and accounting. |
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