Romero Bernárdez, Manuel

Manuel Romero Bernárdez has been a Permanent Staff Professor in the Microbiology Department at the University of Santiago de Compostela since 2024. He is Principal Investigator (PI) in the DITAPREIN group, and his research focuses on bacterial biofilms and the development of innovative approaches to combat resistant microbial infections.

He completed his PhD in Microbiology at USC in 2010 with support from the FPU scholarship programme. His studies were pioneering in using enzymatic mechanisms from marine habitats to interfere with signalling systems of pathogenic bacteria that coordinate virulence and biofilm formation. These results led to significant advances in the field, several highly cited publications, four patents (one licensed for use in aquaculture feed), three scientific awards, and an Extraordinary PhD Award.

Dr Romero has over 10 years of international postdoctoral experience (grants from Fundación Barrié, Fundación Ramón Areces, Xunta de Galicia, and research contracts in the UK), during which he gained extensive expertise in molecular microbiology and the development of antimicrobial biomaterials.

In 2022, he began his career as a Principal Investigator after obtaining competitive funding through the “María Zambrano” excellence programme for attracting international talent (Ministry of Universities), funding from the AEI 2023 research consolidation programme, and holds the R3 certificate of research excellence (2023).

He has published 47 scientific papers (60 % in Q1 journals according to JCR), which have received a total of 1,850 citations (1,215 in the last five years), with an h-index of 23 on Google Scholar. He is corresponding author on five publications. 54 % of his papers were conducted in collaboration with international groups and 21 % with other national research groups.

He has established significant collaborations with industry, especially in oral biofilm control and in the aquaculture and animal feed sectors. He has participated in 30 research projects, leading eight of them. He co-supervised a doctoral thesis (2018) that received the highest grade, international mention, and Extraordinary PhD Award. He currently co-supervises two doctoral theses at USC and in the UK.

He regularly presents his research at international conferences, serving as a member of the organising or scientific committees in three of them.