Ana Armiñán de Benito

Position: Senior Researcher
Email: aarminan@cipf.es

Dr. Ana Armiñán obtained her biology degree at the University of Valencia (Spain) in 2004. Then, she worked in the Cardio-regeneration group led by Dr. J.A. Montero and Dr. P. Sepúlveda, where she received her PhD cum laude at the University of Valencia in 2009. Her research focused on isolating and characterizing mesenchymal and hematopoietic stem cells and their ability to treat myocardial infarction in a preclinical model. In 2009, she joined the Polymer Therapeutics Laboratory and is now a research fellow, where her research focuses on the study and biological characterization of polymer therapeutics in vitro and in vivo for breast and prostate cancer treatment. She is responsible for the preclinical evaluation of nanoconjugates and developing animal models in the Polymer Therapeutics Laboratory. During her career, she has developed faithful preclinical models (animal models, 3D models, cocultures, and human organoids derived from patients), demonstrating multiple nanomedicines' activity and mechanism of action. She is interested in applying metabolomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics to study nanomedicine responses and the search for biomarkers. She has pioneered in the use of metabolomics to explain responses to nanomedicines. Furthermore, she has worked for over a decade on conjugate uptake and cellular trafficking using qualitative and quantitative methodologies. She has been a researcher in several important national (Fund La Caixa-NanoPanTher) and European projects (ERC Consolidator grant MyNano, ERCPoC-Polymmune,). Dr. Armiñán has presented her work at international and national conferences/ meetings such as Gordon Conferences, CRS, ISPT, and ASEICA; she was awarded a Best Oral Presentation at the 46th CRS Annual Meeting & Exhibition. She is the author of one patent and twenty-seven academic articles published in internationally renowned journals, including Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Biomaterials, Science Advances, JACC, and Stem Cells (H-Index 17, WOS source). She has co-directed two Ph.D. students, seven Bachelor final year projects, and three Master students, and is currently co-directing three PhD students. She is also a member of the organizing committee of the International Symposium on Polymer Therapeutics: From Laboratory to Clinical Practice, where she also chairs sessions. She is a peer reviewer of the journals "Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine" and "Molecular Pharmaceutics," and she also participates in divulgation activities at the European Researchers' Night. 

Inma Conejos Sanchez

Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Email: inma.conejos.sanchez@gmail.com

Dr. Inma Conejos-Sánchez is an experienced chemist with a long trajectory in nanomaterials in biomedical applications. In July 2015, she was awarded a Vali+d postdoctoral grant between her Ph.D. lab and the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her project focused on the design, development, and biological evaluation of novel non-viral gene delivery vectors for treating progressive forms of multiple sclerosis using small interfering RNA as the bioactive molecule. Since 2017, she has been involved in several projects such as the ERC-consolidator grant MyNano to develop novel conjugates for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer and in the La Caixa Fund Grant NanoPanTher to develop polymer-drug conjugates for combination therapy of prostate cancer. In 2021 she was awarded the AECC Investigator grant to develop novel combination therapies for pediatric solid tumor treatment. She is also involved in developing novel mitochondria-targeted polypeptide-based systems and intranasal drug delivery approaches to create novel treatments for brain metastasis and glioblastoma.