Dr. Masad J. Damha is a Professor of Chemistry at McGill University, leading a research group dedicated to Nucleic Acid Chemistry & Biology. Alongside a team of undergraduate, MSc, PhD, and postdoctoral researchers, they focus on designing, synthesizing, and evaluating chemically modified oligonucleotides. Their work uncovers the unique biological applications of these oligomers, essential for deciphering structure-function relationships in major cellular pathways, including antisense, CRISPR-Cas9, RNAi, and RNA splicing. Starting from core molecular synthesis and in vitro biophysical testing, the group advances these tools into live-cell and animal disease models for conditions like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Neuroinflammation and Cancer. Discover their current work, team members, and scientific publications at the Damha Group Website: damha-group.mcgill.ca/

Marta Delgado-Gómez is currently a PhD student at the Universidad de Alcalá, under the supervision of Cristina García-Iriepa and Marco Marazzi. Her research focuses on the stabilization of i-motifs using small molecule ligands and photochemical approaches. Previously, she completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s theses on the computational study of molecular solar-thermal systems. And following the completion of her Master’s degree, she worked on the synthesis and characterization of organometallic bismuth and azaborine complexes.

Arnau Domínguez earned his Master’s degree from the University of Barcelona in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Núria Escaja. He later completed his Ph.D. at the IQAC-CSIC in the laboratory of Prof. Ramon Eritja, where he worked on triplex-forming oligonucleotides and triple-helix-based biosensors for infectious disease detection. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University in the group of Prof. Masad J. Damha, studying non-canonical DNA structures for therapeutic applications and RNA-editing enzymes.

Sergio López-Núñez is a PhD candidate in the Structural and Computational Biochemistry Laboratory at the Universidad Católica de Valencia. His research, under the supervision of Dr. José Gallego, focuses on characterizing the secondary and tertiary structures of conserved functional elements within the 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA genome, comprising individual structural motifs and their potential long-range interactions with other elements of the viral RNA genome. His recent work has been published in Nucleic Acids Research, where he is the first author of the article "A potential RNA–RNA distal interaction competing with a functional pseudoknot in the 3′-untranslated region of SARS-like coronaviruses". As part of his doctoral training, he completed a research stay in Dr. Yun-Xing Wang's laboratory at the National Cancer Institute in 2024 and has presented his work at international conferences, including RANN 2024, the EU-CONEXUS Conference 2025, and Viruses 2026.

Lajos Kovács is a senior research fellow at the University of Szeged's Nucleic Acids Laboratory in Hungary. He studied at the University of Debrecen, where he obtained his Ph.D. (1989). He spent predoctoral (1987) and postdoctoral stays (1990–1991, 1993, 2000, 2002, 2010) with Profs. Antonín Holý (Prague, Czech Republic), Manfred Hesse (Zürich, Switzerland), Erik B. Pedersen (Odense, Denmark) and Nicola Howarth (Edinburgh, Scotland), Dimitra Markovitsi and Thomas Gustavsson (Saclay, France), working on the synthesis of nucleosides and spider toxins. His research focuses on synthetic organic chemistry of carbohydrates, heterocycles, nucleosides and the supramolecular structures of nucleic acid derivatives. To date, his work has resulted in over 250 scientific publications and presentations. In addition to his research, he is involved in science communication and the history of science. He is the co-author of the book 100 Chemical Myths (Springer, 2014), which won the Outstanding Academic Title Award in the USA in 2015.