Full Professor in Organic Chemistry at the University of Granada, Professor Hernández-Mateo was born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in 1960. He studied Chemistry at the University of Granada, where he obtained his B.Sc and Ph.D degrees in Chemistry in 1982 and 1986, respectively, under the supervision of Professor F. Santoyo-González. In 1987 he joined the group of Professor Hans H. Baer at the University of Ottawa (Canada) where he was doing researches as Postdoctoral Assistant and as NATO Scientific Fellowship. In 1988 he was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Organic Chemistry Department of the University of Granada. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1990 and to Full Professor in 2012. He has been a visiting scientist at the University of Ottawa (Canada) in numerous occasions and at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM, Canada) working with Professor Hans H. Baer and Professor René Roy.
Professor Hernandez Mateo main research interests may be divided into complementary areas: Carbohydrate Chemistry and Glycochemistry with a particular focus on the study of the reactivity of carbohydrates, the development of new synthetic methodologies for their chemical modification and the development of novel technological and biotechnological applications based on those biomolecules. Major contributions developed until the present have deal with the reactivity of carbohydrates cyclic sulfates and the synthesis and biological activity of multivalent neoglycoconjugates. He has also made contributions in the development and applications of new non-magnetic and magnetic homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic systems for click-chemistry, the synthesis and biotechnological applications of new hybrid materials based on silica and more recently in the development and biotechnological applications based on the chemistry of vinyl sulfones as a methodology for the bioconjugation, labeling and immobilization of biomolecules, and for the synthesis and biotechnological applications of new non-viral transfection agents.
