Dr. Moreno-Herrero (Oviedo, Spain), graduated in Physics by the University of Oviedo in 1998. Intrigued by the physical mechanisms of proteins and their interactions with nucleic acids, Fernando moved to Madrid to undertake a D. Phil. in Biophysics using the Atomic Force Microscope under the supervision of Prof. A. M. Baró. During his D. Phil., Fernando enjoyed three research internships for a total of eight months at the University of California at Berkeley under the supervision of Prof. C. Bustamante. Fernando´s PhD work (Cum laude, 1998-2003) was also awarded the Ph.D. Extraordinary Prize by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. On September 2003, Dr. Moreno-Herrero moved to The Netherlands to carry on postdoctoral research in single molecule biophysics at the Delft University of Technology under the supervision of Prof. C. Dekker. During his postdoctoral period with Prof. Dekker, Fernando focused his research on liquid AFM imaging and Magnetic Tweezers to study DNA-repair proteins interactions and the mechanical properties of nucleic acids. In December 2006, the PI started his own independent research line supported by the Spanish Ramón y Cajal program at the Fundació Privada Institut Catalá de Nanotecnologia (ICN) in Bellaterra, Barcelona. In september 2009, the PI secured a permanent position (Científico Titular) at the National Centre of Biotechnology, Madrid (CNB) ─a research institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)─ and since May 2017 he is Investigador Científico CSIC. Fernando leads the group of Single-Molecule Biophysics of DNA-repair Nanomachines at the CNB. Current research combines development of novel fast AFM technologies and Magnetic Tweezers combined with fluorescence with the aim to characterize and monitor at the single-molecule level the real-time dynamics of DNA-protein interactions involved in DNA organisation, replication and repair.
Fernando has participated in 17 Research Projects, being the Principal Investigator in 9 of them, including an ERC Starting Grant 2007, an ERC Proof of Concept Grant 2014, and an ERC Consolidator Grant 2015. He has been also PI of three projects from MINECO. FMH has more than 65 scientific publications, which accumulates over 2000 citations (WOS) and his h-index is 22. He has delivered multiple invited talks (some of them plenary) in national and international scientific conferences and has presented the work of his group at many Research Institutes or Scientific groups. The impact of his research was recognized in 2012 by the Izasa-Werfen Prize of the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, in 2014 by the “Perez-Paya” Prize of the Spanish Biophysical Society, and more recently in 2015 by the “Miguel Catalán” Prize of the Autonomous Community of Madrid for researchers under 40.