Luis Liz-Marzán

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Luis Manuel Liz-Marzán (born 20 December 1965 in Lugo, Spain) is a chemist who works in nanoscience. He specializes in making nanoparticles with bright optical properties and using them in biomedicine.

He studied chemistry at the University of Santiago de Compostela, earning his degree in 1988 and a PhD in 1992. His PhD, supervised by Arturo López-Quintela, looked at microemulsions as a new way to make ultrafine magnetic particles. After a two-year postdoc at Utrecht University, he returned to Spain in 1995 to join the University of Vigo, where he became a Professor of Physical Chemistry in 2006.

In 2012 he moved to San Sebastián as an Ikerbasque Research Professor and the Scientific Director of the Center of Cooperative Research in Biomaterials, CIC biomaGUNE. He stepped down as director in 2022 but remained an Ikerbasque Professor and leader of the Bionanoplasmonics Laboratory. He currently holds a part-time chair at the University of Vigo, where he leads the Biomimetic Nanomaterials Group at the CINBIO Institute.

Liz-Marzán has been a visiting professor at institutions around the world, including Universität Hamburg, the University of Michigan, the University of Melbourne, Tohoku University, and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces. He has also visited King Saud University, École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, Jiangnan University, and Collège de France in 2022, and he holds an Honorary Chair at Soochow University.

His team works on the synthesis, characterization, and modeling of nanoparticles and materials for nanomedicine. They study materials for cancer and neurodegenerative disease research, arrange nanoparticles into self-assembled layers and aggregates, and develop cancer models to understand disease and test therapies. He has co-authored more than 600 papers and holds 12 patents, and has served as an editor for several journals.

Liz-Marzán has received major European Research Council Advanced Grants. In 2011, the PLASMAQUO project explored plasmonic sensors to understand bacterial–eukaryotic cell relations. In 2018, the 4DbioSERS project looked at monitoring tumor growth with surface-enhanced Raman scattering. From 2025, he is part of the CHIRAL-PRO Synergy Grant, studying interactions between chiral nanoparticles and proteins.