Speakers

Ana B. Cuenca joined the group of Prof. G. Asensio (U. Valencia) for a PhD in enantioselective protonation. Later on, she completed two postdoctoral stays, first at IRCOF-CNRS (Rouen) and after at MIT under the supervision of Prof. S. L. Buchwald (2004-06). From 2007-13 she became assistant professor at the U. Valencia and then she moved to the U. Rovira I Virgili (Tarragona) to work with Prof. E. Fernández. Since Sept-2016 Cuenca is full professor at Institut Químic de Sarrià, Universitat Ramon Llull . Her research interest focuses on the development of new methodologies involving main group elements, specifically I, B, Si.

Dr. María Méndez Pérez is currently head of medicinal chemistry at the Small Molecular Design department and global IDD portfolio coordinator at Sanofi. Her team focuses on supporting drug-discovery programs in the areas of immunology and neurological diseases, focusing thereby on the implementation of novel technologies and workflows with the aim to shorten the DMTA cycle.

María obtained her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid in 2001, followed by postdoctoral research in catalysis at the MPI in Mülheim an der Ruhr and in theoretical chemistry at the TU in Berlin. She started her industrial career at Sanofi in 2006, where she has worked with several target classes, modalities and disease areas in all discovery phases.  As project leader or co-leader, she has contributed to the delivery of clinical candidates in the areas of diabetes and neuroscience.