ICREA Prof. Aitor Mugarza and Dr César Moreno receive the third prize of La Vanguardia de la Ciencia award

by Àlex Argemí

Together with a test to predict response to immunotherapy drugs against cancer and a research on the origins of autism, the nanoporous graphene has been awarded today at La Pedrera with this recognition promoted by La Vanguardia and Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera. The ICN2 researchers from the Atomic Manipulation and Spectroscopy Group led the research published in Science together with DIPC, CiQUS and other ICN2 researchers.

ICREA Prof. Aitor Mugarza has started his speech at the awards ceremony by enumerating the long list of collaborators that made possible the awarded research. The nanoporous graphene presented in Science on April 2018 was possible though a collaboration led by ICREA Prof. Aitor Mugarza and Dr César Moreno, both members of the ICN2 Atomic Manipulation and Spectroscopy Group, together with Prof. Diego Peña (CiQUS), and Dr Aran Garcia-Lekue (DIPC). Further in-house collaborators include Dr. Markos Paradinas (Atomic Manipulation and Spectroscopy), Dr. Gustavo Ceballos (Research Support Division) and Dr. Marius V. Costache and ICREA Prof. Sergio O. Valenzuela (Physics and Engineering of Nanodevices Group).

Dr César Moreno briefly introduced how the nanoporous graphene is cooked and why it might be relevant for electronic applications, filtering the smallest molecules from liquids and gases or biomedical applications such as DNA sequencing and dialysis. The awarded work describes the synthesis of a graphene membrane with pores whose size, shape and density can be tuned with atomic precision. It paved the way to a patent application and strengthened a collaboration that keeps exploring the potential of this enhanced graphene.

We would like to congratulate all the awardees and thank the organisers of the award, with the science journalist Josep Corbella and his team as the heart and soul of this initiative that year after year brings excellent research closer to society.