About Us

UC San Diego – Jacobs School of Engineering

Antonio L. Sánchez holds an International Diploma in Aeronautical Engineering (1990) from Imperial College (University of London), a 6-year degree in Aeronautical Engineering (1991) from the School of Aeronautics in Madrid, and a MS in Aerospace Engineering (1993) and a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics (1995) from UC San Diego. After working as a professor at Universidad Carlos III for almost 20 years (1995–2014), he joined UC San Diego in 2014, where he is currently professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Prof. Sánchez is interested in fundamental problems that involve the interplay of fluid mechanics, transport processes, and chemical reactions. His research approach takes advantage of the disparity of the length and time scales encountered in these complex problems to simplify the solutions, often by combining numerical simulations, carefully designed experiments and mathematical methods that help to identify simpler sub-problems and serve to extract the fundamental underlying physics.

His work has covered a large number of different fluid-mechanical problems, with results published in the leading journals of this discipline. The asymptotic techniques employed are particularly useful in addressing problems that involve multiple time scales, both to clarify the interplay of the underlying physical phenomena and to provide accurate quantification. A clear example is the motion of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the central nervous system, which he has been investigating over the past eight years in collaboration with the late Professors Bill Bradley (UCSD) and Juan C. Lasheras (UCSD) and Professor Victor Haughton (Neuroradiology, University of Wisconsin).

By using a combination of analytical techniques, numerical methods, and in-vitro and in-vivo experiments (the latter using magnetic resonance (MR) imaging to characterize the flow), they have addressed numerous problems involving flow and transport in the central nervous system, including (i) transport of solutes along the spinal canal and its application to intrathecal drug delivery, (ii) oscillating flow in the cerebral aqueduct and its connection to transmantle pressure fluctuations, of interest in the pathogenesis of Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, (iii) development of simple estimates for intracranial pressure fluctuations based on MR measurements of oscillating flow along the spinal canal, (iv) effects of respiration on CSF motion, and (v) flow in perivascular spaces and its role in glymphatic circulation.

Queen’s University Belfast (UK)
Professor of Pharmaceutical Materials Science, School of Pharmacy

Eneko Larrañeta is a Professor at Queen’s University Belfast, specialising in drug delivery systems and biomaterials. He holds a BSc in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Navarra, where his research focused on self-assembled hydrogels. After completing his Ph.D. in 2012, Prof. Larrañeta worked as a research fellow in nanotechnology for drug delivery before moving to Belfast in 2013 to develop microneedle technology for transdermal drug delivery at Queen’s University.

Prof. Larrañeta’s expertise includes hydrogels, nano/microparticles, and microneedle-based systems. Currently, he focuses on implantable systems for sustained drug release, using techniques such as melt processing and additive manufacturing. He has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals, edited multiple books, and authored numerous book chapters. Prof. Larrañeta has secured funding from leading organisations and collaborated extensively with pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies.

In 2023, he was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, and since 2019, he has been recognised as a top 2% scientist in his field by Stanford University’s analysis using Scopus data. He is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Society for Applied Microbiology.

University of Oviedo (UniOvi)
Associate Professor, Surgery Department

Neurosurgeon at Central University Hospital of Asturias (HUCA) and Asturias Medical Center. He graduated in Medicine and Surgery from UniOvi in 1996. He was a specialist in Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology at the Hospital de Cabueñes in Gijón between 1997 and 2002, where he worked as an assistant doctor from 2002 to 2004. Subsequently, Álvarez-Vega was the first doctor in Spain to also perform the specialty of Neurosurgery at HUCA (2004 – 2008). He has worked as an assistant physician in the HUCA Neurosurgery Service since 2008.

He defended his doctoral thesis in 2001, with Outstanding Cum Laudem and Extraordinary Doctorate Award. He has done rotations at the Institut de la Main in Paris University Hospital, Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham, Roosevelt Hospital, NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases and Weill Cornell University in New York.

Professor-collaborator of the Department of Surgery (1997–2001), associate professor of Anatomy (2010–2015), and associate professor of Health Sciences in Neurosurgery (since 2015) at UniOvi.

He has co-authored 50 scientific papers, 15 chapters or books, over a hundred communications for specialty conferences, and has been involved in 18 research projects.