User:ManuelMorillasDiaz

Manuel Morillas Diaz, PhD
Manuel Morillas Diaz is a research scientist trained in Biological Sciences (protein structure, enzyme function, PhD at the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom). His professional career started at the University of St. Andrews (Department of Microbiology) with Prof. R. Hay working on mechanisms of replication of adenovirus to start immediately a PhD fellowship (BBSRC) at the  Department of Biochemistry and Genetics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom (Laboratory of Prof. Richard Virden) where he implementated  new stopped-flow for kinetic analysis, established a research line on inhibitors and substrates of the enzyme penicillin  G acylase with thermodynamic stability studies. He followed post-doctoral studies as Research Associate at the Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA (Laboratory of Prof. Witold Surewicz. At CWRU he implemented protein expression and purification protocols for the recombinant human prion protein and established a new research line on the interaction of the protein with liposomes and contributing to the research line to solve the 3D structure of the human prion protein by X-ray crystallography with Viven Yee.

He followed a Senior Research Scientist position at Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics, Swiss Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland,    where he developed a research project on structure, folding and activity of viral proteases

He went on to Research management of EU projects at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona with the CAMP Project (Chemical Genomics by Activity Monitoring of Proteases) aimed to design and develop drugs to control proteases involved in neurodegeneration, inflammation, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. This project was funded by the European Commission Framework Programme VI and is coordinated by Prof. FX Aviles and Dr. Manuel Morillas at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. He went then on to European Commission, Directorate General RTD, Directorate Health, National Expert in Professional Training where He Develoed  scientific tasks, in particular rresponsible for 25 RTD projects from  FP6, STREP and Large Collaborative projects where he supervised the scientific development of the project, contact point  for the Coordinato and liaison with the Administration and Finance Unit (F6) Health. Following a position as Project Manager at Vall d’Hebron Research Institute, Barcelona he went as European Union Thematic Lead (Health) and EU Health Contact for UK-Northern Ireland and Queen’s University of Belfast. With this remit, he coordinated EU thematic grant applications in conjunction with academic investigators for H2020 and managing FP7 projects. As Regional Manager for Horizon 2020 in Northern Ireland-UK, he advised stakeholders in the region in the future calls, rules of participation, facilitating information and briefing sessions for entities in UK-Northern Ireland-UK and organizing visits for external stakeholders from funding organizations. With this respect, he also organized collaborative workshop activities within entities presenting and coordinating networking activities.

Currently he is Senior EU Project Manager at the Can Ruti Biomedicine Campus (Barcelona) where he promotes and develops the Campus successful engagement with the EU resarch programme (Horizon 2020) and other international research agencies. Can Ruti Biomedicine Campus: Institut de Recerca Germans Trias i Pujol;Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol (ICS-HUGTP), Institut Catala d'Oncologia (ICO-Can Ruti), Institut de Medicina Predictiva i Personalitzada del Cancer, Institut de Recerca Josep Carreras, IrsiCaixa, Institut Guttmann