I am Full Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Rovira i Virgili University. My first contact with the research consisted of the modelling and characterization of solar cells, during the realization of the doctoral thesis at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, which I read in 1988. In 1991 I moved to Tarragona and started a new research group (MINOS), specialized in gas sensors based on metal-oxides and electronic nose systems. We have addressed the manufacture of gas sensors based on nano-structured metal oxides, as well as the implementation of signal processing algorithms. I have experience in multivariate analysis for electronic nose systems; among them are both classical chemometric techniques and neural and heuristic approaches. Likewise, prototypes of electronic nose systems based on gas sensors or mass spectrometry have been built and applied in the field of perfumery, the production of industrial gases and in food quality and safety. Starting in 2007, with the purpose of deepening and expanding the biomedical applications of electronic nose systems, I was introduced in the field of metabolomics, understood as the science that studies in a global way the profiles of metabolites (low / medium molecular weight chemical compounds) that are found in a certain biological medium. Based on a 1.3 M€ grant from CIBER in diabetes and related metabolic diseases of the Carlos III Health Institute, I have created and coordinated the Metabolomics Platform (http://www.metabolomicsplatform.com), owned by Universitat Rovira i Virgili and CIBERDEM.  Its mission is to generate synergies with the R & D groups in biomedicine / clinical sciences to apply metabolomics in the context of health and biomedicine. This initiative has been clearly innovative and pioneering, generating a specific know-how of great value. The applications spread in all areas of research in life sciences. At present it is a reference infrastructure not only in Spain but also in Europe. In 2013, it was integrated into the Centre for Omic Sciences (URV), which has recently been declared by the MICINN singular infrastructure in Omic sciences. The lines of research that I currently lead are the analysis of lipoproteins by nuclear magnetic resonance and the discovery of biomarkers of disease through metabolomic techniques and the design of nanostructured surfaces and medical image processing for the detection of metabolites by Laser Desorption Ionization (LDI) mass spectrometry. During 2013, two European patents were registered related to the advanced characterization of lipoproteins, the result of two doctoral theses, carried out under my supervision. Currently, the advanced lipoprotein Liposcale test is fully developed to detect cardiometabolic risk, marketed by the Spin-off company Biosfer Teslab, created by the authors of the mentioned theses and in which I participate. Since 2014, I have focused many efforts on research in the development of a Platform in Mass Spectrometry Imaging, which has been used in many collaborations with the various CIBER research groups of the Carlos III Institute.

C5.Participation in Spin-off companies

Establishment in December 2013 of the Biosfer Teslab spin-off company. The entrepreneur team is formed by Roger Mallol, Nuria Amigo Xavier Correig and Lluís Masana. The first three are members of the Metabolomics Platform group. We have developed a product that consists of a bioinformatic tool capable of measuring the number of particles and the size of the different subclasses of lipoproteins of the proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of serum / plasma. This company will market the last two European patents mentioned above.

C.6 Institutional responsibilities

• Creation and direction of the Center d'Innovació en Enginyeria Electrònica of CIDEM (Catalan innovation agency) between 1999 and 2001.
• Between 2002 and 2006 I have been vice-rector of Innovation, Transfer and Society of the URV.
• I have been the chair of the Engineering Committee of the Agència de Qualitat Universitària de Catalunya between 2013-2016
• I have promoted and coordinated, since the 2017-18 academic year, the implementation of a new Degree in Biomedical Engineering at the URV.

C.7 International Mobility

• Since 2007 I am an Honorary Research Fellow at University College, London.
• I have done a 7-month research stay at the London Center for Nanotechnologies (2007) and 3 months at the Automotive Development Center of Lear Corp (1998).