Group
Below is the list of people working in the group and links to researcher with whom I keep scientific collaborations.
PhD students
Josep Maria Huguet is physicist and joined the group in August
of 2004. Josep Maria has participated directly in the building of the
optical tweezers instrument during the years 2005-2006 in the
framework of the Barcelona-Berkeley collaboration. Josep Maria takes
care in the maintenance of the minitweezers and carries out DNA
unzipping experiments to investigate the thermodynamics of DNA duplex
formation
I studied physics at University of Barcelona. I was interested in Statistical Mechanics and Quantum Mechanics. However, I also explored other topics such as Relativity or Meteorology. After getting my degree, I collaborated in a Physics Department studying properties of disordered magnetic systems. It took me six months and I enjoyed this experience so much that I wanted to do research. I met Felix on August of 2004 and I joined his group. I recently started working on simple models to describe work and heat fluctuations. I plan to do an experimental PhD thesis on laser tweezers single molecule manipulation and I will investigate DNA unzipping.
Sara de Lorenzo is physicist and joined the group in October of 2005. She
has been in charge of setting up the laboratory of molecular
sysnthesis and the minitweezers room. She has installed all equipment
to build chambers necessary to carry out the experiments in the lab.
At present Sara is building a new optical tweezers instrument. She is also carrying out noise force measurements in single molecules and studying viscoelastic properties of cells.
I studied physics at University Autonoma of Madrid and began to work in the Felix Ritort Group in October of 2005. I have been the laboratory technician during my first two years. During this time I familiarized with the optical tweezers technique and the field of biophysics. At present I am building another mini tweezers instrument for our lab. Besides I am carrying out experiments to study the folding of DNA hairpins by measuring with high temporal resolution.
Joan Camunas is physicist and joined the group in June of
2007. At present he helps in the maintenance of the lab (acquisition
of supplies and building of chambers) and he has started working on
single molecule studies related to DNA elasticity and DNA protein
interactions.
I joined Felix Lab to prepare my master thesis in Biological Physics for KTH (Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm, but enjoyed so much shooting laser beams to my molecules that I decided to start a PhD in the group. I feel very attracted to investigate key biomolecular processes with single-molecule techniques, as they offer an insight difficult to attain with other techniques. As well, the melting pot of biologists and physicists that such a research implies is extremely enriching and fun! At the moment, I am focused on studying and characterizing the binding of anticancer drugs to DNA with the optical tweezers setup.
Anna Alemany is physicist and joined the group in September of
2007. She got a Ciber-BBN starting grant to do research on antigen-antibody
interactions and she will carry out her PhD thesis on tertiary
interactions in nucleic acids and proteins.
I finished my degree in physics on September 07. During my studies I became very interested in thermodynamics and statistical physics and overall, in the study of fluctuations and dissipation theorems for small systems. That's why I decided to join Felix's group after a short introduction into the experimental work in Germany. To begin with, I am going to study antigen-antibody interaction with the optical tweezers and my PhD will focus on the study of DNA and proteins folding, in both experimental and theoretical frameworks.
Marco Ribezzi is physicist who joined the group in January of
2009. His PhD time is shared between the University of Rome II and the University of Barcelona in regime of codirection. He has an excellent background in math and is currently developing the two-trap configuration in the optical minitweezers.
I was trained in Rome "La Sapienza", mainly in probability and statistical physics. After defending a master thesis on theoretical subjects, I decided to move towards experimental physics and now here I am in Barcelona doing my Ph.D. Here I have the possibility to follow both the experimental and the theoretical part of my work, which is an uncommon luck nowadays. My research concerns Fluctuation Dissipation Theorems and is aimed to clarify the conditions under which they hold. I am also developing a large interest in Bayesian methods for data analysis which could be very useful in the context of single molecule experiments.
Sandra Engel is a German student of physics and joined the group in January 2009. She is investigating the kinetics of a 4 states DNA molecule under the action of an external, mechanical force with optical tweezers.
I am studying Physics at the Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany. To accomplish my diploma thesis, supervised by Prof. Philipp Maass, I am currently conducting single molecule experiments with optical tweezers in Prof. Felix Ritort's research lab in Barcelona for about 6 months. My aim is to explore the folding behaviour of y-shaped DNA by combining these experiments with theoretical modeling.
Current Postdocts
Nuria Forns is molecular biologist and joined the group during the spring
of 2006. Nuria started synthesizing the DNA molecules
necessary to carry out the first calibration and test
experiments with the tweezers. She has been leading most of the
projects that involve DNA hairpin synthesis and she is now starting
the investigation of DNA-protein interactions.
am Nuria Forns, a PhD researcher in the Felix Ritort Group. I studied biology and I did the doctorate in molecular biology of microorganisms at the University of Barcelona. I started working with Felix in April 2006 therefore I moved to a new subject: molecular biophysics. Here I am learning a new and amazing methodology to study biomolecules to understand their behavior. My actual project is the study of DNA hairpin kinetics using optical tweezers; specifically I wish to study hairpins with intermediate and misfolded states. In the future I plan to investigate problems in biology such as protein-DNA interactions using the optical tweezers instrument.
Carolina Larroy is biochemist and joined the group during the
spring of 2007 as a "Juan de la Cierva" researcher. She is in charge of
setting up the protocols necessary to carry out our first single
protein force experiments aiming to investigate the folding kinetics of
proteins and peptides.
I obtained my PhD on Biochemistry and Molecular Biology studding the NADP-dependent alcohol dehydrogenase system of "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, under the supervision of J.A. Biosca and X. Pares. In 2007 I joined Felix's lab and moved to the biophysics field where my motivation is to study the folding-unfolding process of proteins. My research project is focused on individual molecule experiments using the optical tweezers in order to investigate the folding-unfolding kinetics in the presence of force.
Cristiano Valim Bizarro is a brazilian biologist who joined the
group in 2008 to investigate the biological function as well as
physical aspects related to the kinetics of molecular motors. He
plans to investigate the unzipping kinetics of translocating motors
on DNA substrates.
I got my PhD degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, which is located in Porto Alegre city, Brazil. I have worked with gene expression analysis in helminth systems using different methodologies. After that I was engaged in a project aimed to sequence and comparatively analyse three bacterial genomes from mycoplasmas. Currently, I joined this group aiming to study molecular motors using optical tweezers. The new experimental possibilities offered by single-molecule approaches are challenging and exciting so I am very motivated to work in Felix's Lab.
Kumiko Hayashi is a japanese theoretical physicist who is
visiting us in Barcelona on a regular basis since the Autumn of
2006. She has been investigating force kinetics and stochastic
resonance in DNA hairpins and she is willing to carry out new projects
in the future related to nonequilibrium fluctuations in single
molecules.
Former PhD students, posdocts and collaborators
Maria Manosas joined the group during the spring of 2002 and got her PhD degree in physics in the University of Barcelona in March 2007. The subject of her dissertation was "Mechanical folding/unfolding of RNA molecules: Experimental facts and theoretical models". Right now she is carrying out her posdoct in single molecule experiments using magnetic tweezers at the ENS (Paris) in the group of Vioncet Croquette
Ivan Junier was a postdoctoral fellow who has joined my group in October 2004. He did his PhD in the area of out of equilibrium statistical physics under the supervision of Jorge Kurchan. During his stay in Barcelona he worked in statistical approaches to understand the dynamics of macro-biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. At present he is still collaborating with us on the subject of molecular folding and fluctuation theorems. His current position is posdoctoral researcher at the Genopole in Programme Epigenomique in Paris
Raimon Sunyer collaborated in my group modeling the viscoelastic dynamics of the cytoskeleton. The he did his PhD in molecular and cell biophysics in the group of Daniel Navajas. Recently he got a posdoctoral position at NIH in Bethesda (USA).
Adan Garriga started to work with me during the year 2000 and he finished his PhD thesis in April of 2004. He worked on the subject of "Non-equilibrium dynamics in simple models for structural glasses". We still keep a very frutiful scientific collaboration on nonequilibrium models for glassy dynamics.
Alessandro Mossa is an italian theoretical physicist who joined us during the spring of 2007 as a theorist to support the experimental research in our group. Alessandro has been investigating issues related to nonequilibrium fluctuations in small systems such as fluctuation theorems and folding kinetics in complex molecules. Now he is working under the supervision of Alberto Imparato in Aarhus (Denmark).