Laura Rodriguez-Arco

Laura Rodriguez Arco is an associate professor at the University of Granada. She obtained the degree of Doctor in Physics from the University of Granada in 2014. In 2015 she moved to the UK and joined the group of Prof. Stephen Mann FRS (University of Bristol) thanks to a Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship. From 2017 to 2020 she worked at University College London (UCL, United Kingdom) in Professor Giuseppe Battaglia's group. In 2020 she was awarded a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación fellowship to work at the University of Granada. During her PhD and early postdoc she specialized in the design and mechanical characterization of materials sensitive to the magnetic field, ranging from magnetic fluids to magnetic biomaterials. Her Marie Skłodowska-Curie project was aimed at the design of magnetic synthetic cells, in which she developed a primitive form of synthetic cell phagocytosis [1,2]. At UCL she worked on the development of polymeric compartments with applications in drug delivery or as nano-reactors[3]. Her current line of research is focused on the design of materials inspired by artificial cells and controlled by external force fields.