María García Parajo

María F. García-Parajo (born 1962) is a Spanish bioengineer who is a professor at The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona. Her research combines photonics, single molecule sensing and bioengineering to understand and control cellular function. She has developed optical techniques to study the dynamic biological processes that occur in living cells

Early life and education García-Parajo studied physical electronics at Imperial College London. She completed two postdoctoral positions, one at the Laboratory of Microstructures and Microelectronics (L2M-CNRS) in Bagneux and one at the University of Twente. In 1998, she joined the faculty at the University of Twente. She moved to Spain in 2005.

Research and career García-Parajo was appointed as a research professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies in 2005. She was originally based at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, and eventually at ICFO. García-Parajo develops advanced optical approaches to study biological processes, and leads the Single Molecule Biophotonics group. She has developed super-resolution microscopy, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and photonic antennas that are capable of reaching 10 nm resolution inside living cells (in vivo and in vitro). Multi-colour single particle tracking allows García-Parajo to investigate dynamic cellular function. She looks to understand how spatial and temporal compartmentalisation of biomolecules in cells impacts cellular function. Her research has implications for health and disease.

Garcia-Parajo has shown how HIV is capable of hijacking dendritic cells, travelling with them to the lymph node and then being transmitted to the T-cells to cause AIDS. Activation of the dendritic cells leads to SIGLEC1 nanoclusters, which capture particles like HIV. This triggers a transformation of the actin cytoskeletons of dendritic cells, forcing them to form sack-like spaces that collect viruses which are implicated in the spreading of infection.

Awards and honours 2017 Bruker National Prize in Biophysics 2017 ERC Advanced Grant 2020 European Physical Society Emmy Noether Laureate

Selected publications