Javier Murciano Calles

Javier Murciano-Calles graduated in chemistry at the University of Granada (UGR) in 2006 with a mark of 3.44 out of 4. In 2005 he became an intern in the Department of Physical Chemistry at UGR, where he then made his PhD about protein biophysics, enjoying an FPU fellowship from the Spanish National Government. He did his thesis defense in 2011, with the highest mark and an international mention. The thesis was granted with the UGR Extraordinary Award and the Best Chemistry Thesis Award conferred by the Andalusian Society of Chemistry. During his pre-doctoral work, he made 3 research stays at Dr. Sachdev Sidhu’s lab (University of Toronto, Canada) of 9 months of total duration. There he learnt the phage display high-throughput methodology, which allows the massive screening of polypeptide libraries. Once he enjoyed his FPU grant, he stayed three years as a post-doc in the Department of Physical Chemistry under the supervision of prof. Irene Luque, using biophysical and proteomic techniques in the search of antivirals. Afterwards, he did a post-doctoral stay funded by Martín Escudero Foundation for two years at Caltech (USA), under the supervision of prof. Frances Arnold, who was awarded with the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry due to be the pioneer in directed evolution. This methodology was successfully applied by Dr. Murciano during his stay at prof. Arnold’s lab on tryptophan synthase, a work that yielded four papers, a book chapter and four patents that are currently exploited by the pharmaceutical company Merck and the startup AralezBio. As a result of all his work, Dr. Murciano-Calles has published 27 scientific papers in 23 prestigious journals, in which 12 is first author and 6 of them corresponding author (14 journals are in Q1, 6 in Q2 and 3 in Q3). He has also co-authored two book chapters. He has 835 cites and h-index of 15 according to Google Scholar. Moreover, he has participated in 6 research projects funded by the Spanish National Government and 2 in USA, and he has been the PI of 2 projects funded by the Andalusian Government and 1 by the National Government. He has participated in 28 conferences, national and international. Regarding his teaching experience, the candidate has imparted more than 800 hours of teaching in Physical Chemistry, in several years, including several theory subjects. He has participated in teaching formation courses for around 200 hours. Furthermore, he has mentored eight master thesis (seven at UGR and another at Caltech), and six bachelors’ thesis. Finally, he is also used to management, since he has been the assistant director of a hall of residence linked to UGR for 10 years, and the director for five years. With all this CV Dr. Murciano-Calles became in July 2023 an Associate Professor (“Profesor Titular de Universidad”) at the Department of Physical Chemistry at UGR.

TFMs dirigidos en los últimos 5 años

1. Título del TFM:

   Búsqueda de ligandos frente a dianas terapéuticas del SARS-CoV-2 y el virus influenza completo (H1N1) mediante el uso de bibliotecas de péptidos fabricadas a través de la metodología de expresión de fagos

• Nombre del estudiante del Máster: Antonio Pozo Medina
• Curso académico: 2021/22
2. Título del TFM:

   Expresión, purificación y caracterización biofísica del factor de crecimiento epidérmico humano

• Nombre del estudiante del Máster: Nicolás Tognetti Palermo
• Curso académico: 2021/22
3. Título del TFM:

   Generación de bibliotecas de péptidos cíclicos mediante evolución dirigida de enzimas y expresión en fagos

• Nombre del estudiante del Máster: Patricia Fernández Galindo
• Curso académico: 2022/23
4. Título del TFM:

   Uso de bibliotecas de fagos para la búsqueda de inhibidores de partículas víricas

• Nombre del estudiante del Máster: Celia Moreno Molero
• Curso académico: 2022/23
5. Título del TFM:

   Generación de bibliotecas de péptidos expresados en fagos y ciclados con moléculas orgánicas para la búsqueda de agentes antivirales

• Nombre del estudiante del Máster: Cristina Fernández Pérez
• Curso académico: 2023/24
6. Título del TFM:

   Generación de bibliotecas de péptidos expresadas en fagos e identificación de los péptidos con mayor afinidad frente a virus

• Nombre del estudiante del Máster: Alejandro Martín Almendros
• Curso académico: 2023/24