Reyes Jiménez Aparicio (Professor and Honorary Professor)

Reyes Jiménez Aparicio has a “Licenciatura” (Degree + Master, 1974) in Chemistry and a doctorate (1979) in Chemical Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). Pre- and Postdoctoral scholarship holder at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry "Elhuyar" of the CSIC and scholarship holder of the Royal Society of Chemistry of London in 1981. Professor of Inorganic Chemistry since 2007 at the Inorganic Chemistry Department of the Faculty of Chemical Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid and Associate Professor (1985-2007) at the same university. Currently is Honorary Professor from September 2021.

A part of the work on thermal and photochemical interconversion in molybdenum dimers carried out in 1981 at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. M.L.H Green is collected in the text “Organometallics, a concise introduction” by Ch. Elschenbroich and A. Salzer, VCH, Germany, 1992, second revised edition, p. 324.

Dean of the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the UCM from June 2006 to June 2014. Vice-Dean of Academic Planning and Students from 1999 to 2006 and Academic Secretary from 1994 to 1999 in the same Faculty.

President of the Spanish Conference of Deans of Chemistry from February 2007 to April 2011.

Director of the research group MatMoPol (Molecular and Polymeric Materials Based on Coordination Compounds) (https://www.ucm.es/matmopol/), previously QCMM (Coordination Chemistry of Compounds with Metal-Metal Bonds) from 1982 to 2021. This group has made an important contribution to the Coordination Chemistry and especially to metal-metal bonded compounds. The contributions cover different synthetic aspects, from synthesis by classical preparations and unconventional methods such as microwave, solvothermal or sonication synthesis.  By unconventional methods has been possible to obtain compounds that cannot be isolated by conventional methods. The group has study deeply the magnetic properties of different types of coordination compounds and especially the properties of the diruthenium compounds which present unusual magnetic properties in an element of the second transition row such as high and low spin and intermediate spins including quantum and physical spin mixtures. Has been carried out the first atomic force microscopy (AFM) and tunneling effect (STM) studies on dimetallic compounds. Several studies have shown that a diruthenium tris(formamidinate) complex preferentially attacks localized positions on one or two nucleotides close to curved parts of the RNA structure where no other reagents bind. These studies open the door for its use in determining the secondary structure of RNA. These tris(formamidinate complexes linked to phytohormones release them in slightly acidic media such as close of tumors, suggesting that this type of compound can be used as carrier of drugs.

Other activities:

Director of the UCM summer course: Chemistry in the 21st Century: Challenges and Responses, july 2007. Collaborator of the General Directorate of Research in the Ministry of Science and Technology during 2003.

Co-coordinator of the National Network of Chemistry in charge of writing the White Book of the new degree in chemistry, financed by ANECA in 2003-2004. Coordinator of the Chemistry Network of the Community of Madrid created to carry out studies on the adequacy of the universities of Madrid to the European Higher Education Area in 2003.

Honor Medal of the UCM (2014) and Medal of the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the UCM (1993).