About
David De Sancho is a permanent researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), where he leads, together with Xabier López, the BIOKT group, a part of the broader KT Laboratory (KT is the acronym for Kimika Teorikoa, theoretical chemistry in Basque). David completed his PhD, under the supervision of Prof. Antonio Rey at Complutense University in Madrid, in 2007. Then he undertook postdoctoral work with Prof. Victor Muñoz (UC Merced) in the Spanish Research Council and Dr. Robert B. Best (NIH-NIDDK) at the University of Cambridge. In 2015, David returned to Spain to carry out work in CIC nanoGUNE with support of an Ikerbasque Research Fellowship. In 2018 he was awarded a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship and moved to the University, where he was tenured in 2023.
Research interests
David conducts computational studies on biomolecular systems, with a focus on protein folding, intrinsically disordered proteins and peptide assemblies. His work bridges molecular simulations and biophysical modeling to understand the complex energy landscapes that govern protein conformational dynamics and molecular recognition. Using molecular dynamics simulations, coarse-grained modeling, and enhanced sampling techniques, his group investigates how sequence features and environmental conditions shape the structural and dynamical properties of proteins as observed in experiments. In his work, David has answered questions related to the speed limits of protein folding reactions, the molecular origin of internal friction or how the apparatus distorts the observables measured in single molecule experiments, and explained the hierarchy of interaction strengths of different amino acids in biomolecular condensates.
Working with BioExcel
As the BioExcel Ambassador for Spain, David disseminates the activities organized by BioExcel and promotes the use of best practices and advanced computational tools for biomolecular simulation within the Spanish research community. As a practitioner, he has been a GROMACS user for 15 years and, more recently, has used PMX in the study of biomedically relevant mutations of proteins and the study of biomolecular condensates. David and other members from his group have participated actively in the BioExcel Conferences on Advances in Biomolecular Simulations. By fostering community engagement, he aims to strengthen the network of computational biophysicists and computational chemists in Spain and support the next generation of researchers in adopting cutting-edge HPC workflows.
Learn more about the BioExcel Ambassador Program
