Luis Liz-Marzán

Luis M. Liz-Marzán is a PhD from the University of Santiago de Compostela and has been postdoc at the van't Hoff Laboratory (Utrecht University) and visiting professor at various institutions worldwide. After an extended academic career at the University of Vigo, in 2012 he joined the Basque Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials (CIC biomaGUNE), in San Sebastian, as Ikerbasque Research Professor and Scientific Director, a position he held until December 2021. Since 2015 he is also the PI of the CIC biomaGUNE node of the Biomedical Research Networking Center: Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (Ciber-BBN) and since 2022 he holds a part-time Chair at the University of Vigo. Liz-Marzán is recognized by his work on the application of colloid chemistry to the (nowadays crowded) field of nanoplasmonics. He has been one of the pioneers in the colloidal synthesis of metal nanoparticles, with relevant contributions toward the control over the morphology of such nanoparticles, as well as toward tailoring nanoparticle surface chemistry and self-assembly. Recent work by the group has focused on surface bioconjugation (e.g. with glycans and cross-linkable polymers) but also on drug delivery and understanding nanoparticle fate within living cells. The scope of the research in Liz-Marzán's group has not been limited to synthetic aspects, but had the ambition to perform morphological and optical characterization at the highest level, to apply theoretical methods to model particle growth and optical properties, and ultimately applying them to the design of applications, mainly related to ultrasensitive detection and early diagnosis of diseases. Liz-Marzán and co-workers have contributed to both the comprehension of the phenomenon of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and the design of substrates that improve the performance of SERS sensors toward the detection of disease biomarkers.