Postdoctoral Fellow

About me: I am originally from Isla Mayor, a small village surrounded by nature in Seville, southern Spain. I hold a BSc in Biomedical Sciences, a BSc in Biochemistry, and a MSc in Biomedical Research. I wanted to drive my career towards the intersection of biomedicine and physics, so I embarked on my PhD journey in the fields of radiobiology and medical physics. I researched on the implementation of gold nanoparticles as theragnostic agents in the field of radiotherapy. I am currently an RCC-HU postdoctoral research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, affiliated to Harvard Medical School.

Research Interests: My current research focuses on the radiobiology of theragnostic radiosensitizer nanoparticles, where I have researched on radiobiology experimentation, computational modeling of radiotherapy, and nanoparticle synthesis and characterization. I am currently studying and characterizing the internalization dynamics of AGuIX and AGuIX-derived nanoparticles, and how they influence the radiosensitization effect. My interests also include the study of the tumor microenvironment and the immunomodulatory effects of radiation therapy, specially from novel treatment options such as radiopharmaceutical therapy.

• 2024 – Best trainee presentation, Mass General Brigham Radiation Oncology Research Retreat. Boston, MA.
• 2024 – RCC-Harvard University Postdoctoral fellowship. Boston, MA.
• 2023 – FPU short-term research intern fellowship, Ministry of Science, Government of Spain.
• 2022 – Promoter of “CARMEN Medical Physics Solutions LLC”, 2nd prize in the spin-off business models competition, University of Seville, Spain.
• 2021 – Best presentation, “What I do in 3 minutes” contest, Institute of Biomedicine of Seville, Spain.
• 2020 – FPU (University Professor Training) fellowship, Ministry of Universities and Science, Government of Spain.
• 2019 – PIF (Research Personnel Training) fellowship, University of Seville, Spain.
• 2018 – “Collaboration grant” studentship, Ministry of Education, Government of Spain.
• 2017 – “Research initiation grant” studentship, University of Seville, Spain.
• 2017 – Winner of the 12^th Business Ideas Contest, Social Council of the University of Seville, Spain.

• José Antonio López-Valverde; Elisa Jiménez-Ortega; Antonio Leal. Clinical Feasibility Study of Gold Nanoparticles as Theragnostic Agents for Precision Radiotherapy. Biomedicines. 10 – 5, pp. 1214. MDPI, 2022/05/23
• Dominika Skwierawska*; José Antonio López-Valverde*; Marcin Balcerzyk; Antonio Leal. Clinical Viability of Boron Neutron Capture Therapy for Personalized Radiation Treatment. Cancers. 14 – 12, pp. 2865. MDPI, 2022/06/10. *Co-first authorship

• Feasibility study of the use of nanoparticles as theragnostic agent in Radiotherapy – José Antonio López-Valverde; Elisa Jiménez-Ortega; Ana Ureba; Antonio Leal 3rd European Congress on Medical Physics (ECMP), EFOMP, Torino (Italy), 2021.