Current team

Postdocs
Natalia Lorena Cancelarich, 2023-present.
Machine learning-guided design of frog-derived non-hemolytic AMPs (with Mariela Marani, IPEEC-CONICET, Argentina)

Ph.D. students
Kruttika Purohit, 2025-present.
Novel bioactive peptides from edible rhizomes: integrating traditional knowledge with AI. (main director: Anwar Sunna, Macquarie University) as part of the ARC Centre of Facilitated Advancement of Australia's Bioactives (FAAB) in collaboration with Factors Group.
Dani Montoya-Londoño, 2025-present.
Computationally guided characterisation of understudied membrane transporters (main director: Ian Paulsen, Macquarie University) as part of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (CoESB) and the CSIRO Advanced Engineering Biology Future Science Platform.

Alumni

Research Assistant
María Teresa Carrillo Rayas, PhD - 2022-2024.

Ph.D. students
Mariana del Carmen Aguilera Puga, 2018-2024.
Predicting mechanisms of action of antimicrobial peptides using AI.
Juan Carlos Guido Patiño, 2019-2024.
Proteo-transcriptomic studies of Mexican ant venoms.
Julio César Lopez Juarez, 2019-2023^*.
Structural bioinformatics applied to venomics.
Rafael González-Castro, 2019-2021^*.
Heterologous production of cysteine-rich peptides in N. benthamiana. (Co-director: Miguel Gomez Lim, CINVESTAV)

Master students
Luis Ruiz Rios, 2022-2024.
Biosynthesis of C-nucleosides in Caulobacter species. (Co-director: Francisco Barona Gomez, now at Leiden University)
Analia Pastrana, 2022-2024.
Validation of AMP databases. (Co-director: Fernanda Mendez, Universidad Austral, Argentina).
Jesús Gabriel Osuna Osuna, 2022-2023.
Finding hymenopteran venom toxins against Candidiasis. (Co-director: Eugenio Mancera Ramos, CINVESTAV).
Victor Daniel Aldas Bulos, 2021-2022.
Algorithm bias in antimicrobial peptides
Stephany Mora Macías, 2020-2023.
Developing stable antimicrobial peptides with molecular grafting.
Rafael Rincón Ramírez, 2020-2023.
Transcriptomic studies of 7 venomous scorpions (Co-director: Alfredo Herrera Estrella, CINVESTAV).
Emmanuel Ricardo Lagunas Ocampo, 2019-2023.
Machine learning-guided directed evolution applied to toxins.
Cristina Martínez Hernández, 2019-2021.
De novo design of selective anticancer peptides. (Co-director: Miguel Gomez Lim, CINVESTAV).

B.Sc. students
Oscar Daniel López Olmos, Genomic Sciences - National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 2022-2023.
Deep Learning models to predict antimicrobial activity against ESKAPE pathogens.
Daniela Vargas Castro, Experimental Biology - The University of Guanajuato (UG), 2020-2022.
Effects of urbanization upon ant venoms (Co-director: Suria Gisela Vásquez Morales, UG).
Jesús Gabriel Osuna Osuna, Biotechnology Engineering - Polytechnic University of Sinaloa (UPSIN), 2020.
Generating artificial conotoxins (Co-director: Adrián González Castillo, UPSIN).
Victor Daniel Aldas Bulos, Biotechnology - Autonomous University of Mexico State (UAEMex), 2020.
Molecular dynamic studies (Co-director: Sergio A. Aguila, CNyN)
Rafael Rincón Ramírez, Biology - the Higher Technology Institute of Irapuato (ITESI), 2018.
Classifying scorpion toxins