The Miguel Catalán Research Award for 2015 in the category for researchers under 40 years old has been granted by the Community of Madrid to the CNB-CSIC biophysicist Fernando Moreno Herrero, jointly with the telecommunications engineer Julian Aguilar Fiérrez.
This prize is awarded annually in recognition of the scientific activity as well as the scientific and humanistic values of researchers whose careers are in some way linked to the Community of Madrid. In the category for researchers under 40, it recognizes the quality and excellence of scientific work and research carried out at the beginning of the awardee’s research career.
Moreno has been a tenured scientist at the CNB-CSIC since 2009, where he directs the Molecular Biophysics Group of DNA Repair Proteins. His group, which combines knowledge of physics and biology, has become an international reference in the study of single molecules and the development of new techniques for atomic force microscopy.
This award is added to others, including the SBE-40 'Pérez-Paya' Award by the Biophysical Society of Spain in 2014 and the Izasa Werfen Award from the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2012.
Also worth noting is the recent award of a 2015 Consolidator Grant project by the European Research Council (ERC), worth almost 2 million euros, and a 2015 ERC Proof of Concept Grant. In 2007, he received an ERC Starting Grant.
The award in the Scientific Career category was awarded to María Blasco, Director of the CNIO since 2011.
About Fernando Moreno
Moreno holds a BSc degree in physics from the University of Oviedo (1998) and a PhD (with honors) in the same area from the Autonomous University of Madrid (2003). Following a postdoctoral stay at the Technical University of Delft, he returned to Spain in 2006 as a Ramón y Cajal fellow at the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology, until 2009 when he obtained a tenured position at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC) in Madrid.
He completed his doctoral thesis on atomic force microscopy under the direction of Professor Arturo Baro, and decided to work on applications for biological systems. Using novel single-molecule techniques based on optical and magnetic trapping, his postdoctoral training would lead later to the development of magnetic tweezers and its application to biological systems of great interest.
The intellectual and experimental rigor of his work at the frontier between physics and biology has led his research group to become an international reference in the study of individual molecules in biology. They participate in the development of high-speed atomic force microscopy techniques, with considerable international impact, and constitute a key research group in the development of nanoscience in the Community of Madrid.
He has participated in 16 research projects, as principal investigator in nine. Special achievements include the ERC Starting Grant in 2007, the ERC Proof of Concept grant in 2015 and the ERC Consolidator Grant in 2015. Awards include the SBE-40 'Pérez-Payá' Prize from the Biophysical Society of Spain in 2014 and the Izasa Werfen Award from the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2012.
