XFELs at the forefront to fight against human diseases

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The initial stages of most of the chemical reactions that occur in our body, such as infectious processes like the the ongoing COVID-19, occur on timescales of the order of the femtosecond, which is about a billion times faster than the blinking of the human eye. These types of reactions are so fast that until relatively recently they could not be studied in detail and with atomic resolution using current technologies. However, this situation is beginning to change thanks to the emergence of a great scientific-technological advance known as the X-ray super lasers. Which are infrastructures of several km in length, which produce very powerful and very short duration X-ray pulses.

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In our research group we use this cutting-edge technology to visualize and study in real time how proteins move within cells, how they interact with each other, and how their shape changes in order to understand how they carry out their biological function. With the results of our research we hope to advance in the development of new drugs that are more effective in the fight against infectious diseases, cancer, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's

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My group is interested in:

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1. Macromolecular serial crystallography at synchrotrons radiation sources and XFELs

2. Structural biology

3. Protein structural dynamics

4. Drug discovery

5. Development of micro-crystallization and sample delivery methods for serial crystallography.