Fernando Benavente

Associate Professor, Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Barcelona, Spain.

Calling: “I fell in love with chemistry in the last year of secondary school. My chemistry teacher was able to show me how exciting this piece of science could be.”

Regret: “Definitely not and for a reason: analytical chemistry is so interdisciplinary that there are as many paths as there are seekers.”

Emphasis: “I am focused on improving sample preparation, separation and characterization methods for the analysis of peptides, proteins and glycoproteins in complex samples.”

Triumph: “The development of on-line solid-phase extraction capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry for clean-up and sensitivity enhancement, especially with immunoaffinity sorbents.”

Respect: “Norberto A. Guzman, a pioneer of SPE-CE-MS, who was my supervisor in USA and always inspiring for my work. Milos Novotny for his contributions in separation science, proteomics and glycomics.”

Hopes: “I hope we can improve sensitivity and selectivity of analytical methods to decipher all those analytical challenges related to low concentrated analytes with complex structure, such as certain glycoproteins in proteomics.”

Prediction: “High performance microscale and nanoscale separation techniques will be game changers because we will be able to solve all sensitivity and reproducibility issues.

Advice: “dream big, work hard and never give up.”