Biography

Natalia was born in Cádiz, Spain. In 2017 she moved to Canterbury, England to study a BSc in Biomedical Sciences with a Sandwich Year at the University of Kent. Natalia graduated in June 2021 with a First-Class Honours degree.

In her third year of University, Natalia undertook an industrial placement year at GlaxoSmithKline in the Formulation Development team within the Cell and Gene Therapy department. Here she acquired experience in the development of adoptive T cell therapies. Her placement project explored the use of alginate encapsulation for immune cell preservation.

Her final year dissertation, supervised by Dr. Tim Fenton, analysed the genomics and immune microenvironment of HPV-positive cervical cancer using bioinformatics, obtaining an average grade of 89%. For this, she obtained the Best Laboratory Project prize, best finalist project and the Royal Society of Biology Advanced Accreditation best project award.

Natalia joined the Gibson Group in September 2021 and is currently undertaking a PhD funded by the European Research Council and supervised by Professor Matthew Gibson. Her research focuses on improving immune cell recovery and function after cryopreservation by modulating cellular biochemical pathways.

From March 2022, Natalia works part-time as a module facilitator in the Health and Medical Sciences first and second year modules "Wellbeing: Mental Health and Neurobiology", "Food: Nutrition and Malnutrition" and "Infection: Prevention and Outbreaks" within the Warwick Medical School.

Extra-curricular activities

Natalia enjoys volunteering in STEM related programs. She currently volunteers at Zero GravityLink opens in a new window, an online mentoring platform which supports state school students through the process of applying to University to study Biomedical Sciences. She was previously involved on the University of Kent BioSoc committee, where she chaired research and career talks from multiple fields during the 2020/2021 academic year. Additionally, they created "The Other Side of STEM" project in early 2021, where they collaborated with 6 other Kent societies to showcase unique talents within STEM students and professionals.

In the summer of 2022 she collaborated in the University of Warwick Sutton Trust Summer School.

From October 2022, Natalia joined the Chemistry Postgraduate staff-student liaison committee and acts as a secretary.

Research Interests

Natalia is interested in interdisciplinary research areas with a strong clinical focus such as suspension and monolayer cell cryopreservation, cell and gene therapy and immuno-oncology.

Publications

1. Degradable Polyampholytes from Radical Ring-Opening Copolymerization Enhance Cellular Cryopreservation

   Théo Pesenti, Chen Zhu, Natalia Gonzalez-Martinez, Ruben M. F. Tomás, Matthew I. Gibson, and Julien Nicolas

   ACS Macro Letters 2022 11 (7), 889-894.

2. Synthesis of Poly(2-(methylsulfinyl)ethyl methacrylate) via Oxidation of Poly(2-(methylthio)ethyl methacrylate): Evaluation of the Sulfoxide Side Chain on Cryopreservation

   Toru Ishibe, Natalia Gonzalez-Martinez, Panagiotis G. Georgiou, Kathryn A. Murray, and Matthew I. Gibson

   ACS Polymers Au 2022.

3. Integrated analysis of cervical squamous cell carcinoma cohorts from three continents reveals conserved subtypes of prognostic significance.

Ankur Chakravarthy, Ian Reddin, Stephen Henderson, Cindy Dong, Nerissa Kirkwood, Maxmilan Jeyakumar, Daniela Rothschild Rodriguez, Natalia Gonzalez Martinez et al. Nature Communications 2022 13, 5818.

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Education

BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences, University of Kent (2017-2021)

PhD student in Chemistry, University of Warwick (2021 - 2025)

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Contact

Email: Natalia.Gonzalez-Martinez@warwick.ac.uk

Address: Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL

ORCID IDLink opens in a new window

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