Rafael Bermeo attended the Lyon Superior School of Chemistry, Physics and Electronics (CPE Lyon) from 2013 to 2018; where he obtained his Bachelor, then his Chemical Engineering Diploma (MSc equivalent).
During the course of his diploma, Rafael spent one year (2015-2016) as an intern at Bayer AG (Frankfurt, Germany), performing organic synthesis of bioactive molecules under supervision of Dr. Klaus Haaf. He later spent one year (2016-2017) as an exchange graduate student at Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR, USA), where he specialized in the fields of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and volunteered at the Natural Products Chemistry Lab, under supervision of Dr. Sandra Loesgen. Finally, Rafael joined the New Modalities Group (NMG) at Novartis International AG (Basel, Switzerland) and, under supervision of Dr. Gregory Hollingworth and Pier Luca D’Alessandro, carried out his Master’s thesis on the biocompatible synthesis of bifunctional molecules (2017-2018).
He is currently pursuing his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Annabelle Varrot at CERMAV (CNRS, University of Grenoble) and Prof. Anna Bernardi at the University of Milan, working towards the design of inhibitors of the Bc2L-C superlectin. Rafael’s main interest revolves around using organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry and chemical biology to tackle current pathologies in new, efficient ways.