Jose
Ruiz Lopez

Prof. José Ruiz born in Cartagena (Spain) and graduated in Chemistry with honours at the University of Murcia (UMU), and received the National Extraordinary Bachelor’s Degree Award by the Spanish Ministry of Education. He received his PhD in Chemistry in 1984 at UMU under supervision of Prof. G. López. Later, he worked as a postdoc at the Sheffield University (UK) for 2 years in the Maitlis group, working in transition metal hydrides. In 1987, he got a permanent position as a Lecturer at UMU. Since 2002, he started his independent career and drove his interest towards the field of Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry. In 2007, he became Professor at UMU and founded the Metallodrugs Discovery Group. He is also leader of the Non Conventional Anticancer Metallodrugs Group at the IMIB (Murcian Institute of Biosanitary Research). He has been a member of the Spanish Network MultiMetDrugs (RED2018-102471-T). Currently, he is member of the ACS. Throughout his scientific career, he has authored 130 publications in peer-reviewed international journals, leading to more than 4,350 citations (1,574 in the last five years, not including the current year; WOS). His h-index is 38. In the last ten years JRuiz has published 50 papers in the areas of Inorganic, Medicinal and Multidisciplinary Chemistry: e.g. 1× Angew. Chem., 1× Chem. Sci., 6 × J. Med. Chem., 3 × Coord. Chem. Rev., 5 × Chem. Commun., 4 × Inorg. Chem. Front., 5 × Chem. Eur. J., 1 × Eur. J. Med. Chem., 1 × Biomacromolecules, 1 × Cell. Mol. Life Sci. and 8 × Inorg. Chem. Some main achievements are: 1) The development of a successful divergent synthesis of novel C,N-cyclometalated benzimidazole Ru(II) and Ir(III) anticancer complexes with a handle for further functionalization (J. Med. Chem. 2015; 115 citations). 2) The design of theranostic agents based on d6 luminescent Ir(III) complexes, including conjugates with receptor-binding peptides such as the FDA-approved octeotride and its dicarba analogue (somatostatin receptor-targeted; Chem. Comm. 2017; 49 citations). 3) The synthesis of photodynamic therapy agents such as the Ir(III)-COUPY conjugate - with absorption and emission in the biocompatible region (Angew. Chem. 2019; 136 citations). His current research interest is focused on the design and synthesis of d6 metal-based photosensitisers with novel mechanisms of action (e.g. Inorg. Chem. Front. 2021, Chem. Commun. 2020, J. Med. Chem. 2021). In addition, he has been invited to give many invited lectures: e.g. EuroBIC Birmingham 2018; ICCC2018. Sendai (Japan); Photochemistry School 2020 DIPC, Donostia; CulturChem Conference (Graduate School) Sorbonne University, 2022; Research workshop of the Israel Science Foundation "Metals in Medicine", Jerusalem, 2022; 2nd International Forum on Medicinal Chemistry of Natural Active Ligand-containing Metallodrugs (Guangxi Normal University in Guilin, hybrid mode). Prof. Ruiz has developed numerous international collaborations with research groups such as those headed by Brabec (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Brno), Janiak (U. Düsseldorf), Ott (U. Braunschweig), Marchán (U. Barcelona), Barone (U. Palermo), Glazer (U. Kentucky), and Gasser (PSL University, París). He is a regular evaluator of scientific journals (e.g. Adv. Mater., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Chem. Sci., Chem. Rev., Chem Soc. Rev., Adv. Funct. Mater., ACS Nano, Biomaterials), as well as of project proposals in competitive calls for international agencies: e.g. Dutch Research Council, ANR (France), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), Israel Science Foundation, State Research Agency (AEI, Spain; both at the level of remote projects and in the annual evaluation panel), etc. J. Ruiz has participated in the organization of many scientific meetings: e.g. AEBIN biennials (Cádiz2015, Bilbao2017, Lugo2019, Madrid2022) and RSEQ QIES2016 (Málaga).