Nieto, Ferran
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ferran is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow (MSCA-PF) within the SELECT-IT project. His research focuses on how microbial glycans interact with host proteins, aiming to clarify molecular recognition processes at the human mucosa–microbiota interface.
Ferran graduated in Chemistry with a biological mention from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2014–2018) and completed a Master’s degree in Research at the same university (2018–2019), with a focus on organic chemistry and carbohydrate synthesis. He then moved to Naples to pursue his PhD in Chemistry at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II within the Sweet Crosstalk MSCA-ITN, under the supervision of professors Alba Silipo, Roberta Marchetti and Antonio Molinaro. During his PhD and subsequent postdoctoral work within the ERC GlycoSwitch project (2023–2026), he developed a multidisciplinary profile combining NMR spectroscopy, biophysical techniques and computational studies to investigate glycan-mediated recognition processes.
Within SELECT-IT, Ferran aims to expand his multidisciplinary toolbox by incorporating QM/MM methods to computationally validate enzymatic mechanisms in bacterial IT-sialidases, with the goal of guiding the rational synthesis of inhibitors.
Finished thesis: 2023
Current group: Quantum Simulation of Biological Processes led by Carme Rovira