Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Marc Mora Hortal
I obtained my Chemistry degree from the University of Barcelona in 2015. During my time here, I undertook a research project in the Self Organized Complexity and Self Assembled Material group, investigating chiral structures in liquid crystals. I obtained my PhD in the Garcia-Manyes lab (funded by Fight for Sight) using single molecule force-clamp spectroscopy to capture the molecular onset of protein misfolding. I am now a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, working on different aspects of mechanobiology.
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Alex Gorey
Dr. Ana López Mengual
PhD Students
Felix Gehres
I graduated with an MSc from Maastricht University in 2020. During that program, I undertook two research placements. The first project dealt with the optimization of a novel data-independent acquisition (DIA) technique for desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging (DESI-MSI). In a second project during my MSc, I studied the structure-activity relationships of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). In June 2021, I started a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Sergi Garcia-Manyes. The title of my project is “Unveiling the nanomechanical properties of the LINC complex proteins with single molecule resolution”.
Email: [email protected]
Rosie Austin
In 2021, I completed my bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical and Chemical Sciences from the University of Brighton. During my undergraduate degree, I undertook a year in industry where I worked as a Materials Scientist. Here I used a variety of techniques and measurement systems to investigate issues with pharmaceutical and consumer products. In October 2021, I joined the Garcia-Manyes group as a PhD student to study the nanomechanical effects of oxidative-stress post-translational modifications in cardiac titin using magnetic tweezers force spectroscopy.
Email: [email protected]
Natalie Milmoe
Cris Escalona López
Georgia Cohen
Associated members
Dr. Amy Beedle
In 2018 I completed my PhD in the Garcia-Manyes where I was using single molecule force spectroscopy AFM to investigate how mechanical forces can modulate the reactivity of individual proteins. After working in Sergi’s lab using the newly built magnetic tweezers set-up to investigate proteins with low mechanical stability, in 2019 I moved to IBEC (Barcelona) with A Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust to study different aspects of cellular mechanotransduction.
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Rafael Tapia-Rojo 
I completed my Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Zaragoza, working on the development of computational models at the mesoscopic level and the implementation of free energy methods for an array of biological problems. In 2016, I joined the Fernandez lab at Columbia University as a postdoctoral researcher, where I developed magnetic tweezers instrumentation and studied the physics of protein folding under force.
In December 2020, I joined the Garcia-Manyes lab as a postdoctoral researcher.
Email: [email protected]
Lab Technicians
Dr Patricia Paracuellos
Email: [email protected]
Lab Alumni:
- Palma Rico Lastres
- Yong J Wang (Jim)
- David Giganti
- Ainhoa Lezamiz
- Aisling Williams
- Bob-Dan Lechner
- Marta Castro-Lopez
- Josep Relat-Goberna
- Judit Perales-Calvo
- Giulia Galli
- Elvira Infante
- Andrew Stannard
- Stephanie Board
- Kateryna Lemishko
- Fani Panagaki