Name: María Romero Fernández
Affiliation: Dpto de Química Orgánica, Universidad de Sevilla (USE)
Address: c/ Profesor García González 1, 41014, Seville, Spain
ORCID: 0000-0002-9037-9485
Scopus: 57193873260
Short biography:
Dr. María Romero Fernández, NET4FLOW Project Manager, obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biosciences at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2018. In 2018, she started a postdoctoral researcher position at the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham (Nottingham, UK). In 2021, she joined the biotech company Phenotypeca Ltd. (Nottingham, United Kingdom) as a Senior Research Scientist in Protein Chemistry and Downstream Processing for leading the setup and development of downstream processes in pharmaceutical protein production. In 2024, she joined the company Fabricnano Ltd. (London, United Kingdom) as a Senior Immobilisation Scientist. In this role, she led the R&D activities of the Enzyme Immobilization Team and was responsible for project-managing the R&D of the team. She was also Technical Lead of Product Development for the product Predictive Immobilization Plates. Her research is focused on biocatalysis, enzyme immobilization and flow chemistry. Dr. María Romero Fernández has coauthored 18 peer-reviewed publications and has a h-index of 13.
University/Company description:
The University of Sevilla is an institution that provides a public higher education service through study, teaching, and research, as well as the generation, development and dissemination of knowledge at the service of society and citizens. The dimensions and characteristics of the University of Seville make it a city within the city. This is evidenced by its campus, which has more than 26 centres and 133 departments spread throughout Seville. Its more than 70,000 students and 4,400 research and teaching members make it the second public university in Spain. The Stereoselective synthesis group, located at the Department of Organic Chemistry, has a great expertise in the asymmetric synthesis of valuable compounds employing different types of catalysts, including metal-based catalysts, organocatalysts and enzymes.
Facilities, infrastructure & equipment:
Research facilities at the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry include several laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art technology for research in organic synthesis and applied biotransformations, required for the development of ESR05. Modern analytic (UV-Vis, GC-FID, GC-MS, FT-IR, HPLC, SFC) and characterization (NMR and HRMS) equipment is available at the research center, as well as all the standard equipment required for the development of organic synthesis, including those syntheses under protection gas (argon or nitrogen).
Relevant publications and/or research/innovation products:
- Maria Romero-Fernandez, Christian M. Heckmann, Francesca Paradisi. Biocatalytic Production of a Nylon 6 Precursor from Caprolactone in Continuous Flow. ChemSusChem. 23, e202200811.
- Elena Alvarez, Maria Romero-Fernandez, Diego Iglesias, Raul Martinez-Cuenca, Obinna Okafor, Astrid Delorme, Pedro Lozano, Ruth Goodridge, Francesca Paradisi, Darren A. Walsh, and Victor Sans. 2022. Electrochemical Oscillatory Baffled Reactors Fabricated with Additive Manufacturing for Efficient Continuous-Flow Oxidations. ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. 10, 7, 2388–2396.
- Maria Romero-Fernandez, Francesca Paradisi. Biocatalytic access to betazole using a one-pot multienzymatic system in continuous flow. Green Chemistry. 23, 4594 – 4603.
- María Romero-Fernández, Francesca Paradisi. Protein immobilization technology for flow biocatalysis. Current opinion in chemical biology. 55, 1 – 8.
- Maria Romero-Fernández, Sonia Moreno-Perez, Alejandro Herrera-Orrego, Sandro Martins de Oliveira, Ramón I. Santamaría, Margarita Díaz, Jose M. Guisán and Javier Rocha-Martin. Designing continuous flow reaction of xylan hydrolysis for xylooligosaccharides production in packed-bed reactors using xylanase immobilized on methacrylic polymer-based supports. Bioresource Technology. 266, 249 – 258.