Spanish National Research Council CSIC

Carlos Sánchez-Somolinos, coordinator of the STORM-BOTS project, holds a CSIC Research Scientist position at INMA where he leads the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory. His expertise and scientific objectives are focused on the development of polymers and their processing through advanced manufacturing techniques (direct laser writing, inkjet and 3D printing) in the search of polymeric surfaces or functional systems of interest in the areas of optics, biomedicine and soft robotics. He has recently developed at INMA the 4D printing of liquid crystal elastomers, a technique that introduces intelligent character to 3D printed structures, programing,though additive manufacturing, material response to external stimuli. He has published more than 80 papers in internationally recognized journals, and 4 book chapters. His work has been featured in the cover of Advanced Functional Materials, Small, Macromolecular Bioscience and Journal of Polymer Science, Polymer Chemistry. He is coinventor in 17 patents, almost all of them with Industry as co-proprietary and one of them leading to the formation of a spin-off company. Very much focused on the transfer of technology, he has undertaken lines of research in the functionalization of surfaces in direct collaboration with Industries (Bosch -BSH Spain- and Dupont Lightstone). He has previously participated in five EU projects, one of them as a PI at CSIC (FP7-SME-2013, ID.: 605934), and has led several National and Regional Research projects and contracts, some of them fully financed by Industry. Currently, he is coordinator of the PRIME FET-OPEN H2020 project, dedicated to the development of a platform of materials and advanced manufacturing techniques to create active and easy-to-operate microfluidic devices (ID: 829010). In 2017 he was awarded with the Prize of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Zaragoza (Physics Section).