The Department of Earth and Climate Sciences was honoured to host Professor Juan Manuel Garcia Ruiz : CSIC-Unversidad de Granada, Spain who gave public lecturers on various topics to staff and students and discussed on various ways of collaborations between the two institutions.
Biography:
Juan Manuel García Ruiz (http://garciaruiz.com/JuanMa.html) is Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), founder and director of the Laboratory of Crystallographic Studies – LEC (http://www.lec.csic.es) of the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences (CSIC-University of Granada). LEC is currently the leading group in crystallization in Spain. He was PI of the Spanish Crystallization Factory, a Governmental research Project coordinating more than 100 scientists from 8 different Spanish institutions and funded with 7 Million Euros. He also got in 2014 a prestigious ERC Senior Advanced Grant, and two ERC Proof of Concept Grants in 2019 and 2022.
Garcia-Ruiz is an international expert in nucleation and crystal growth, from inorganic and pharmaceutical compounds to minerals and proteins, highlighting his studies on the formation of giant crystals and the crystallization of drugs and proteins in gels and microgravity. He has been chairman of several space crystallization missions, coordinating more than 30 European and Japanese laboratories. He has licensed several patents and is the founder of Triana Science & Technology.
What probably describes better the scientific production of Garcia-Ruiz is the variety of fields and problems he has faced during his professional career. Being formally a geologist, García-Ruiz was mostly interested in crystallography and mineralogy and, particularly, in the interface between the minerals and life. With a solid formation in nucleation and crystal growth processes and non-linear pattern formation, he has applied this fundamental knowledge to various problems, in many cases phenomena discovered by himself, as the termed silica-carbonate biomorphs. Some examples of the broad interest of Garcia-Ruiz’s research are his studies on diffusion-reaction systems, Liesegang rings, competitive crystal growth, fractal dendrites, stars formation, structural biology studies, ammonites’ sutures, stromatolitic growth, chiral crystallization, precipitation in wines, eggshell biomineralization, giant crystals or crystallization in space, not to mention his studies on fundamental aspects of nucleation and crystal growth.
The multi- and interdisciplinary nature of his work are reflected in the variety of international journals where García-Ruiz has published more than 300 papers (in many cases as front covers), in journals such as Science, Nature, Geology, Science Advances, Nature Comm, PNAS, Phys. Rev. Letters, Journal of American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed., J. Applied Crystallography, J. Crystal Growth, Crystal Growth and Design, Methods in Enzymology, Acta Crystallographica, Astrobiology, Biochemistry, J. Structural Biology, RSC Interface, and others).
Lectures and Discussions in Faculty of Science and Technology, SPS Boardroom, 8th to 14 March 2023
Organisers: Department of Earth & Climate Sciences and Department of Chemistry
1. Wednesday 8th March 2023, 10am to 4pm: Learning Tour of FST and Structure of the University of Nairobi (Prof D. Olago and Dr. S. Deresse).
2. Thursday 9th March 2023, 10am to 12pm, SPS Boardroom: Lecture I - Geology: The role of silica in a lifeless planet. This is a lecture on the geochemistry of the primitive Earth and the origin of life on Earth and elsewhere. Open to all staff and students.
3. Friday 10th March 2023, 10am to 12pm, SPS Boardroom: Lecture II Chemistry - The wonderful world of crystallography. Open to all staff and students.
4. Monday 13th March 2023, 10am to 12pm, SPS Boardroom: COSPAR meeting – Planning for workshop at UoN in February 2024 – Staff in Depts of Earth and Climate Sciences and Dept of Chemistry to attend.