Meet Celia Martín, a PhD researcher at the NHBPM group

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She is Celia Martín-Morales and now is a member of the Nanostructured Hybrid, Biohybrid and Porous Materials (NHBPM), part of the Materials Science Institute of Madrid. She is developing her PhD in the area of Chemistry. Martín-Morales comes from the south of Madrid. She studied Chemistry at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and, from the second year of her degree, she immersed herself in research. "I was part of a Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) project in genetic engineering and biotechnology, with the aim of producing biofuels from cyanobacteria, within the frame work of the international competition iGEM from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)," she says.

"It was at that time when I met ICMM, where I developed the chemical part of the project," remembers the young researcher. "Later, in my Final Degree Project, I worked on the production of nanoparticles for biomedical applications in strokes, which further awakened my interest in biomaterials. Then I did my master's degree in biomaterials at UCM, which brought me back to ICMM during my master's thesis, working on biomaterials with biomedical applications." 

What will you work on? With whom?

I am now doing my PhD with Pilar Aranda and Eduardo Ruiz-Hitzky on the production of biomaterials for biomedical applications to treat bleeding or infections, among others.

Why did you choose ICMM?

The ICMM is one of the leading centers in biomaterials research in Spain, and I believe it can offer me good training and experience that will allow me to develop as a researcher. 

And a personal touch: any hobbies? What would you like to contribute to the institute?

I love to paint, in fact one of the things I like the most is to illustrate scientific things being able to divulge through art. I also like sports, I practice boxing, and I love learning new things and looking for new hobbies.

As a contribution, I would like to be able to create biomaterials that at some point can improve our quality of life. Also, I would like to be able to bring science closer to people who are not so closely linked to it.