Dr. Marcelino Gutiérrez

Dr. Gutiérrez is a staff scientist and coordinator of the INDICASAT’s Center for Biodiversity and Drug Discovery. He obtained his Bachelor Degree of Chemistry at the University of Panama in 2000 working on bioactive natural products from plants. In 2001 he starts his doctoral studies at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in the laboratory of Dr. Ricardo Riguera, working on the isolation and structural determination of bioactive metabolites from octocorals. After doctoral studies, Dr. Gutiérrez carried out a postdoctoral stay at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, in the laboratory of Dr. William H. Gerwick, working on the isolation and structural determination of anti-cancer natural products from marine cyanobacteria. In 2008, Dr. Gutiérrez returned to Panama and for the last twelve years he has led his research group at INDICASAT establishing a new line of research in natural products of microbial origin. Dr. Gutiérrez's laboratory has started and maintains a collection of bacteria with more than 5,000 strains of marine and terrestrial bacteria. As a result of his research, Dr. Gutiérrez has more than 30 publications, which include the first chemistry studies of natural products of marine invertebrates from Panama and their associated bacteria.