Antonio J. Díaz-Quintana (He/Him)

Associate Professor, Universidad de Sevilla

About Antonio J. Díaz-Quintana

I am Associate Professor of Biochemistry in the University of Seville (Spain). Since the beginning of my career, one of my major interests has been how electron transport works in Photosynthesis an Oxidative phosphorylation. For this purpose I have resorted to fast kinetic approaches and different spectroscopies—XAS, EPR, NMR— and thermodynamic approaches combined with biochemical tools and computational simulations—MD, BD—. This research led me to dig into biomolecular interactions, and protein engineering.

Recently I have become interested in a set of rare set of neurodegenerative diseases formerly attributed to brain iron accumulation (NBIA). In Spain, three of them have the largest prevalence: PKAN, PLAN and BPAN. No remedy is known for them, but there is much to do meanwhile Gene therapies become available. One of my goals is to find  biomarkers to aid clinical follow-ups and, the other, to find suitable molecular chaperones to damp the effects of point mutations. Although these syndromes are not considered of mitochondrial origin, they strongly affect mitochondria, and make patients much more sensitive to mito-toxicants. I collaboration with other teams, we are also screening approved drugs to find the less offensive of each class for the patients.

Research Interest

Apoptosis Biophysics Cell Signalling Chemical Biology Computational Biology Kinetics Protein Chemistry Structural Biology

Other Expertise/Interests

Grant writing Postgraduate training Scientific administration Undergraduate teaching

Details