Dr. Morales is Senior Staff Researcher at IPBLN-CSIC and Founder and Scientific Advisor of Limnopharma, a start-up focused in the development of new therapeutics for ophthalmic diseases. His research focuses in the areas of biological and medicinal chemistry. His laboratory works on: a) the design and synthesis of modified nucleobases and oligonucleotides to study molecular interactions and to explore the limits of DNA, and b) the development of DNA G-quadruplex ligands as anticancer and anti-infectious agents. He is author of more than 120 papers and inventor of 14 patents.

My research lies at the interface of chemical and synthetic biology, with a central focus on the chemical biology of non-natural nucleic acids. This includes nucleobase-modified nucleic acids with expanded functionalities, Xeno Nucleic Acids (XNAs) featuring artificial sugar backbones, and chemically modified mRNA molecules incorporating non-canonical nucleotides. The overarching goal of my work is to advance the understanding, synthesis, and therapeutic application of modified nucleic acids as next-generation biomolecules for medicine and biotechnology.

Bartomeu Mir completed his Ph.D. in 2019 at the Universitat de Barcelona under the supervision of Dr. N. Escaja, specializing in nucleic acid structure. His research focused on factors governing i-motif stability, including capping interactions and cytidine analogues. As a Margarita Salas Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. C. González (IQF-CSIC), he worked on the design of a novel i-motif aptamer. In his subsequent postdoctoral period, he collaborated with Bruker on the NMR characterization of therapeutic oligonucleotides. Since 2025, he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. His research integrates chemical synthesis, structural biology, and biophysical techniques to elucidate the functional roles of DNA secondary structures, with applications in gene regulation and therapeutic development.