Category Archives: Congress

Juan Mangas wins the SEBiot Young Research Talent Award 2023

Juan Mangas wins the SEBiot Young Research Talent Award 2023

For four days, from 17 to 20 July, the Faculty of Pharmacy of the UCM hosted the XVIII National Biotechnology Congress Biotec 2023, which brought together more than 200 researchers, students and biotechnology professionals to learn about the latest advances in our sector. Within this framework, Juan Mangas, from the Department of Organic and Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oviedo, received the SEBiot Young Research Talent Award 2023, sponsored by Solmeglas.

Juan Mangas Sánchez obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Oviedo (2013), under the supervision of Vicente Gotor Santamaría and Vicente Gotor-Fernández (Department of Organic and Inorganic Chemistry), working on the design of new enzymatic processes to prepare compounds of pharmacological interest. In his first postdoctoral stage, he worked for two years in the group of Professor Patrick Adlercreutz, at the University of Lund (Sweden), where he studied the optimisation of enzymatic processes to obtain biodiesel and special triglycerides.

In 2015, he joined Professor Nicholas Turner’s group at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (UK) as a research associate to work on the discovery of new enzymes for the more sustainable preparation of chiral amines, compounds of great importance in the chemical industry. These enzymes are now used to prepare drugs on an industrial scale. As a result of these studies, he received the 2021 Rita and John Cornforth Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry, along with colleagues from the University of York and the companies Prozomix and GSK.

In 2020, Mangas joined the Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis (ISCQH-CSIC) in Zaragoza as an ARAID researcher to begin his career as an independent scientist. There he started to develop new lines of research combining different types of catalysts to prepare chemical compounds of interest in a more efficient way.

Recently, he joined as a Ramón y Cajal researcher the Department of Organic and Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oviedo, where he was trained years ago. Juan Mangas has co-authored 40 research articles on the use of enzymatic catalysis in asymmetric chemical synthesis in prestigious international journals and has been awarded the Zaragoza Royal Society of Sciences Chemistry Award 2022 and the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award 2023.

“Receiving the award for young researchers in biotechnology from the SEBiot is something that makes me very excited”, explains Juan Mangas. For the researcher “it is an honour and tremendously gratifying that such a prestigious society as SEBiot recognises my professional career. At the Biotec 2023 congress, organised by the Society this week in Madrid, the high level of biotechnology in Spain was evident, which makes this recognition even more valuable. I am also very grateful to Solmeglas for sponsoring these awards”.

Four intense days

It is impossible to summarise in a few lines the content of a congress that offered almost 70 talks – including plenary lectures, keynotes and oral communications – distributed in seven tracks, four round tables, the presentation of almost 70 posters and several networking activities. On the social media profiles of SEBiot and many of the participants, using the hashtag #Biotec2023, you can see how the congress has been followed.

In this image gallery you can take a look at some of the highlights of Biotec 2023, an event that would not have been possible without the support of all our partners, sponsors and collaborating companies, whom we would like to thank once again for their participation and commitment.

Monday 17 July


Tuesday 18 July


Wednesday 19 July


Thursday 20 July

BIOTEC 2023 to be held in July in Madrid

BIOTEC 2023 to be held in July in Madrid

The XVIII Congress of the Spanish Society of Biotechnology, BIOTEC 2023, will be held at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, from July 17 to 20, 2023. After these last years marked by the COVID pandemic, it is a pleasure to be able to celebrate this new edition of BIOTEC in face-to-face format.

The national congresses of biotechnology (BIOTEC), organized by SEBiot since 1986, provide a great opportunity for researchers and professionals in the biotechnology sector to establish contacts and collaborations with other colleagues, as well as with other agents involved in this field, from private companies to public administrations and other organizations at national level. The scientific program of the congress is focused on offering updates on a wide range of topics of interest by prestigious specialists, as well as giving space to young researchers to present their work to the scientific community.

The BIOTEC 2023 program will include sessions on food, plant, industrial, environmental and microbial biotechnology and on biotechnology and health. It will also have poster sessions on the 18th and 19th, and will host, on Wednesday the 19th in the afternoon, the celebration of the annual assembly of SEBiot members.

In the conference website you can find all the information about the BIOTEC 2023 program —regularly updated as speakers are confirmed—, as well as the instructions for sending communications and participating as a speaker. Keep posted on our website and our social networks.

Event website: biotec2023.com