Katrin Ackermann obtained a degree in biochemistry from the Goethe University in Frankfurt (DE), where she prepared her thesis on liquid-state protein NMR. For her postgraduate studies she worked on diurnal rhythms in human post-mortem tissues at the Anatomy in Frankfurt. She continued to work in the field of human chronobiology during two postdoctoral stays at the University of Surrey (UK) and at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam (NL), before joining the University of St Andrews in 2012 and starting to work with EPR. Her projects in the Bode group are centred on EPR applications for structural biology.
Bela E. Bode received his PhD from the Goethe University in Frankfurt working on quantitative aspects of nanometre distance measurements by pulse electron paramagnetic resonance with Prof. Schiemann and Prof. Prisner. He joined Prof. Matysik at Leiden University exploring optical methods in NMR first as a Humboldt-Fellow later as Marie-Curie Fellow. In 2011 he moved to St Andrews to start his independent career. Bela's research involves methodology and applications of EPR spectroscopy with special interest in biomedical science and catalysis. Outside the lab Bela loves to explore the Kingdom of Fife and the rest of Scotland.
Maruan Alberto Bracci is a PhD student enrolled in a joint project between the University of Zaragoza and Antwerp, under the H2020-MSCA “PARACAT” program. He received a Master Double Degree in Chemistry and Advanced Chemical Methodologies from the University of Camerino, Italy, and the University of Catamarca, Argentina. His research interests are focused on the development and the optimization of methods for trapping and stabilizing short-lived reaction intermediates of peroxidases and other heme enzymes, using hyperfine EPR techniques to understand the structure-function relations in these systems.
Paolo Cleto Bruzzese is a PhD student in the EPR group at the University of Leipzig currently involved in a Marie Sklodowska Curie action called PARACAT as an early stage researcher. He obtained his Master's degree at the University of Torino in Chemistry in 2018. His research interests focus on the determination of geometrical and electronic structure of reactive Cu(ii) ions in zeolites by combining EPR techniques and DFT computations on complex models. He is particularly interested in the characterization of Cu species responsible for the methane to methanol conversion process (MTM) in zeolites materials.
Victor Chechik is a Reader at the University of York (UK). After completing PhD studies in physical organic chemistry in Russia in 1993, he was a postdoc in the groups of Charles J. M. Stirling (University of Sheffield) and Richard M. Crooks (Texas A&M University), working on self-assembled monolayers and monolayer-coated nanoparticles. He only discovered the power of EPR spectroscopy when he started at York in 1999. His research interests have since included free radical chemistry, detection of short-lived radical intermediates, mechanisms of radical reactions, stable free radicals as labels and probes for supramolecular assemblies, and of course EPR spectroscopy.
Antonino Famulari obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degree in Chemistry at the University of Messina, Italy. Currently, he is undertaking his PhD as part of the, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions funded, project PARACAT as an early stage researcher at the University of Zaragoza. His research interest focuses on understanding the reaction mechanism and the nature of reactive intermediates of cytochromes P450 in two bacterial model enzymes: the CYPBM3 and the CYP116B5.
David Fioco is currently part of the Cardiff University EPR group and PARACAT programme, a Horizon 2020 project funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry at “Università La Sapienza di Roma” and his Master's degree in Chemistry from “Università di Pisa”. Within the PARACAT project he is investigating the photochemistry of Cr based complexes of relevance for olefin oligomerization.
Andrea Guidetti is a PhD student at the BIMEF group of the University of Antwerp since 2019, as a member of the EU-funded PARACAT project. He obtained his master's degree in Chemistry at the University of Padua in 2017. His current research interests involve the use of EPR and other spectroscopic methods to gain mechanistic insight of photocatalytic processes which employ earth-abundant metal complexes and organic dyes as photosensitizers, in collaboration with the ORSY group at the University of Antwerp.
Andrew Hartley is a post-doctoral research associate in the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds. He graduated from the Liverpool with a degree in Genetics, and completed his PhD at Cardiff University in 2010, in the laboratory of Dafydd Jones. He then moved to Birkbeck to work with Amandine Maréchal as a post-doc working on cytochrome c oxidase, where he solved the structure of respiratory supercomplexes in yeast mitochondria by cryo-EM. In 2019 he moved to the lab of Christos Pliotas at Leeds University, to characterise mechanosensitive ion channels by Pulsed EPR ad CryoEM.
Dr Oleksii Laguta obtained his MSc diploma in physics at the National University of Kyiv (Ukraine) in 2013. In 2016, he received PhD in Lasers, Molecules, Atmospheric Radiation from the University of Lille (France). After that, he moved to Stuttgart to work as a postdoctoral research fellow in the group of Petr Neugebauer (AG van Slageren, Stuttgart University) on the development of frequency domain rapid-scan HFEPR. Since 2019, he is a junior researcher at the Central European Institute of Technology in Brno, Czech Republic. Currently, he studies fast spin dynamics at (sub)millimetre wave range using rapid-scan EPR with his own project under Marie Sklodowska Currie Action – IMPROVE program.
Benjamin J. Lane obtained a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of St Andrews in 2018. Ben then joined the Wellcome Trust PhD Programme at the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology within the University of Leeds. Following rotation projects investigating various aspects of membrane proteins, Ben joined the groups of Christos Pliotas and Stephen Muench. His project focuses on understanding the structural basis for functional multimodality in mechanosensitive ion channels using cryo-electron microscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy.
Yu-Kai Liao studied Mathematics and Physics at the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, followed by a Master's degree in Physics at the University of Leipzig, Germany, working on EPR investigations on paramagnetic ions incorporated into metal sites in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). He is currently undertaking his PhD study at University of Turin, focussing on the mechanism of the Phillips catalyst by studying the role of Cr species as active sites under different olefin polymerization conditions.
Yue Ma received her BSc degree in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol in 2017. Since then, she has been a PhD student under the supervision of Christos Pliotas studying the structural and dynamic behaviour of a challenging eukaryotic mechanosensitive membrane protein. Her project utilizes site-directed spin labelling combined with electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to investigate the in-lipids structural transitions of membrane proteins in response to external stimuli. She aims to reveal the universal gating mechanism that potentially exists among mechanosensitive channels and the role that lipids play during channel gating.
Dr Andriy Marko is currently a senior researcher at the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) in Brno (Czech Republic). Also, he is a fellow of Marie Sklodowska Currie Action – IMPROVE program with an own project related to the theory of frequency rapid scan Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR). Generally, his scientific interests are focused on the theory of magnetic resonance and simulation and interpretation of experimental data. Andriy Marko has studied physics at the Ivan Franko Lviv University (Ukraine) and graduated in 1998 with diploma thesis devoted to the description of relativistic particle interactions. In 2005, he obtained his PhD from the University of Saarland (Germany) with the thesis related to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) applications to the studies of liquid diffusion through porous media. In 2006, Andriy Marko joined the EPR research group of prof. Prisner as a postdoc at the Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany). There, his research work was focused on the theoretical analysis and interpretation of pulsed dipolar EPR data for the determination of structure and dynamics of complex biological macromolecules.
Daniel O. T. A. Martins obtained his BSc (Hons) in Chemistry from Fluminense Federal University (2017) and MSc from the University of São Paulo, Brazil (2020). He was awarded a ‘Science without Borders’ exchange scholarship, studying for one year at the University of Manchester (UK), and did research placements at the UK National EPR Facility, and University of Ottawa (Canada). He was awarded a University of Manchester Presidential Scholarship and started his PhD under the supervision of Dr Floriana Tuna and Professors Eric J. L. McInnes and Richard E. P. Winpenny, working on quantum information processing with molecular spin systems.
Eufemio Moreno-Pineda obtained his BSc in Chemistry from the University of Panama. He then moved to Manchester (2011) to pursue MSc and PhD studies on molecular nanomagnets, supervised by Dr Floriana Tuna, and Professors Eric. J. L. McInnes and Richard E. P. Winpenny. He subsequently completed a postdoctoral stay at the National EPR Facility in Manchester, before moving to Karlsruhe (2015), Germany, to do postdoctoral studies on SMMs for Quantum technologies at the Institute of Nanotechnology in KIT under the supervision of Professors Mario Ruben and Wolfgang Wernsdorfer. Currently he is lecturer at the University of Panama.
Damien M. Murphy is Professor of Physical Chemistry at Cardiff University. After obtaining his Chemistry degree from the Dublin Institute of Technology in 1990, he moved to the University of Turin to undertake his PhD in EPR of surface defects on polycrystalline materials. Following successive post doctoral appointments at the IST, Lisbon (1994) and Université P. et M. Curie, Paris (1995), he was appointed to a permanent academic position in Cardiff University, School of Chemistry, where he is currently a Full Professor and Head of School. He is a Fellow of the RSC (FRSC), Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW) and a former Royal Society Wolfson Research Award holder. His research interests are broadly focused on the applications of advanced EPR methods for catalysis research.
Dr Petr Neugebauer is research group leader and founder of the Magneto-Optical and THz Spectroscopy (MOTeS) group at the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), Brno, Czech Republic. The group focuses on the development of High Frequency Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (HFEPR) spectroscopy, especially frequency rapid scan above 100 GHz (ERC starting grant), HFEPR applications to molecular magnetism and thin film materials, amongst others. He received his diploma in Physical Engineering in 2005 at Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic, and in 2010 obtained a PhD degree (Marie Curie fellowship) in Physics of Condensed Matter and Radiation at Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory (GHMFL) and Grenoble University, France, working under the supervision of Dr Anne-Laure Barra on the development of HFEPR. After the PhD, he joined the group of Prof. Thomas F. Prisner for a two-year postdoctoral stay (Stipendium: Center of Excellence Frankfurt) at the Center for Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance at Goethe University, Germany. In Frankfurt, he was focused on pulsed HFEPR and liquid state Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP). Consequently, he joined Prof. Joris van Slageren at University of Stuttgart, Germany, where he continued in the development of HFEPR spectroscopy for an additional 5 years (German priority program SPP1601: New Frontiers in Sensitivity for EPR Spectroscopy: From Biological Cells to Nano Materials). He is a member of the International EPR Society and Elite Program of Baden-Württemberg.
Maria Oranges received her Bachelor and Master degrees in Chemistry from the University of Calabria in Italy. For her final project, she characterised spin labelled DHPC bilayers studying the phase behaviour and flexibility by CW-EPR, and polarity profiles and water accessibility by three-pulse ESEEM. In September 2016 she moved to Scotland joining the group of Dr Bela Bode where she has just completed her PhD studies. Her research was related to distance measurement-based EPR methods for studying multimerisation equilibria and orientational correlations between spin centres. Now, she will carry on doing more EPR research as postdoc at the Weizmann Institute.
Christos Pliotas obtained a BSc in Physics at the University of Athens and an MSc under the supervision of DJ Lurie at the University of Aberdeen. He then completed a PhD at Aberdeen specialising in membrane proteins, before moving to St Andrews with James Naismith FRS and Olav Schiemann. There, he employed PELDOR/DEER on the seven-spin channel MscS addressing its debated conformation. He was the recipient of a Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship and a principal investigator at St Andrews. Christos moved with his group to the Astbury Centre at the University of Leeds, where he applies pulsed EPR methodologies on complex membrane proteins.
Leonora Podvorica is a PhD student enrolled in a joint PhD program between the University of Turin and Antwerp within the PARACAT project. She obtained her Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering and her Master degree in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry at the University of Pristina “Hasan Prishtina”, Kosovo including 5 months at the University of Umeå, Sweden. The main focus of her current research comprises the exploring of the paramagnetic active species in Ziegler-Natta catalysts (role of activator, nature of the metal-alkyl bond) and the role of coordinated Lewis bases.
Seyedeh Fardokht Rezayi is a current PhD student in the EPR group at Cardiff University and one of the early stage researchers in PARACAT project. She obtained her Bachelor and master degree in Chemistry from Iran. Currently, her research interest focuses on the application of earth abundant metals for small molecule activation and C–C cross coupling. She is interested in characterizing the paramagnetic states, spin transitions and the effect of coordinated ligands on the catalytic activity of the paramagnetic metal centres.
Dr Vinicius Santana received his PhD in applied physics at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) in 2016 working with exchange coupled molecular compounds using EPR spectroscopy supervised by Prof. O. R. Nascimento. Currently, he is a Junior Research Fellow at the Central European Institute of Technology of the Brno University of Technology (Brno/Czechia) and a team member of the Magneto-optical and THz spectroscopy group led by P. Neugebauer, where he participated in the setup of a HFEPR spectrometer and works with applications of this technique for the investigations of molecular spin systems and solid-state magnetic materials. In 2018, he obtained the prestigious individual grant Marie Sklodowska-Currie Action – IMPROVE. He is a member of the international EPR society.
Matúš Šedivý studied microelectronics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Brno University of Technology (FEEC BUT), Czech Republic, and obtained master's degree in 2017. Currently, he is a PhD student at FEEC BUT and member of a magneto-optical and terahertz spectroscopy research group at the CEITEC BUT. He cooperates on technical improvements of a custom build HFEPR spectrometer and he is a main developer of automation software for the HFEPR spectrometer. His research is focused on a study of semiconductors doped by paramagnetic centres via frequency domain rapid-scan HFEPR technique.
Ilenia Serra is a PhD student working in a joint project between the University of Antwerp and the University of Zaragoza, in the H2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie Action “PARACAT”. She obtained her Master degree in Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy (2018). During the preparation of her Master's thesis, she spent three months as a training student at the University of York, where she used EPR spectroscopy to study copper-enzymes. Her research interest within the PARACAT program focuses on the spectroscopic investigation of chlorite dismutases and heme-containing peroxidases.
Antonín Sojka received his BSc degree from the Brno University of Technology (Brno, Czech Republic) in 2015. He continued his study at the same university, where he obtained in 2017 an MSc degree in physical engineering. Since 2017, he is a Ph.D. student at Central European Institute of Technology in Brno, where he is developing a novel Terahertz high field Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectrometer under the leadership of Petr Neugebauer. His research is focused on developing frequency-domain rapid-scan EPR to study short relaxation times (∼ns), which are not able to be observe by conventional pulse EPR spectrometers.
Pierluigi Stipa graduated at Bologna University with a thesis on the synthesis of stable indolinic nitroxides from nitrones under the guidance of Prof. Lucedio Greci in 1983, then joined Università Politecnica delle Marche. Among the founders of G.I.R.S.E (Italian Federation of EPR spectroscopists) in 1987, spent his postdoc with the S.R.E.P (Structure et Reactivité des Especes Paramagnetiques) research group directed by Prof. Paul Tordo at Marseilles University. Currently is full professor of Chemistry, and his scientific interests have always been focused on organic free radical chemistry, EPR Spin Trapping, Nitroxide synthesis and applications as antioxidants in polymers and biological systems.
Kavipriya Thangavel, is one of the early stage researchers in the PARACAT- MSCA program, and currently undertaking a joint doctoral program on the EPR investigations of high spin bimetallic MOFs at the Universities of Leipzig, Germany and Cardiff, UK. She obtained her MSc degree in Physics from the Bharathiar University (2016), India. Later, she graduated her MPhil in Physics from the University of Madras (2017), India. Afterwards, she joined the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), India as a Junior Research Fellow and worked in the field of low temperature magnetism (2018–2019).
Mark Tseytlin, currently an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at West Virginia University, has received a Ph.D. degree in physico-mathematical sciences from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2002, where he conducted independent research until immigration to the US in 2008. In America, he worked in several leading EPR groups at the U. of Denver, Dartmouth College, and the U. of Chicago (as Visiting Scholar). Dr Tseytlin's area of expertise is in the development of novel technologies for EPR imaging and spectroscopy, including theory, software, and instrumentation.
Floriana Tuna obtained her PhD in 1997 from the Physical Chemistry Institute of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. Following a DAAD fellowship at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), a CNRS postdoctoral stay at ICMCB Bordeaux (France), and a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship at the University of Warwick (UK), she joined the University of Manchester Molecular Magnetism team, and later the EPSRC UK National EPR Facility progressing to Senior Research Fellow. She was awarded a Leverhulme Trust (UK) Fellowship and the Romanian Academy ‘Ilie Murgulescu’ Prize for excellence in research, publishing to date over 300 high-impact papers on magnetochemistry and EPR.
Bolin Wang is a PhD student under the supervision of Christos Pliotas in the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds. He studied Biotechnology and Structural biology at Zhengzhou University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees. His research focuses on the gating mechanisms of mechanosensitive ion channels using a combination of methodologies including cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations.
Joshua L. Wort received his Master of Science in Biochemistry in 2016 from University College London. Here, while working with Dr C. M. Kay, he applied EPR to investigate both the catalytic cycle of the chaperone Hsp90, and later the mechanism of polymerisation in α-1 antitrypsin. Subsequently, he took a summer internship at the CNRS in Marseilles studying the Molybdate enzyme Arsenite oxidase via CW-EPR. He is currently undertaking his PhD at the University of St Andrews with Dr B. E. Bode, wherein quantitative pulse dipolar EPR methods are benchmarked and applied to biological model systems.
