Campusa has published a news article about the detection of erythulose, the first sugar identified in the interstellar medium, in which researchers from the EHU Spectroscopy Group, Emilio J. Cocinero and Aran Insausti, participated. The study, published in Nature Astronomy, reports the detection of erythulose in the G+0.693−0.027 molecular cloud and provides new insights into how complex molecules relevant to prebiotic chemistry may form in space.

Our group participated in the 79th International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy (June 22–26, 2026, Urbana, Illinois) with four oral presentations. Andrea Vázquez, Jiarui Ma and Aran Insausti presented our latest research. Photos from the presentations are shown below.

The Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) has named Emilio J. Cocinero as its representative in the Physical Chemistry Division of EuChemS (European Chemical Society), where he will take part in shaping scientific initiatives and strengthening collaboration across the European Physical Chemistry community. Read more

Last Friday, we had the pleasure of hosting an invited lecture by Prof. Alberto Lesarri at the Adela Moyua lecture hall, University of the Basque Country. His talk, entitled “Los sorprendentes enlaces de hidrógeno basados en azufre”, offered fascinating insights into unconventional hydrogen bonding interactions and sparked engaging discussions among attendees.

Last week, Emilio served as a member of the PhD thesis committees at the University of Bologna, where he participated in the evaluation of two doctoral dissertations. The theses, by Andrea Maggio and Filippo Baroncelli, were entitled “Exploration of Conformational Landscapes and Large Amplitude Motions in Molecules and Molecular Clusters: A Rotational Spectroscopy Approach” and “Rotational Spectroscopy as a Tool for Environmental and Structural Chemistry: Studies on PFAS, Fluoroalcohols, and Hydroxylamines”, respectively.

Both works address important topics in molecular spectroscopy, highlighting the use of high-resolution techniques to investigate structural and dynamical properties of molecular systems.

Recently, Emilio traveled to India, where he delivered two invited talks. In Nagpur, at the SDMC 2026 conference, he presented a plenary lecture entitled “High Resolution Molecular Spectroscopy: A Chemical Tool for Modern Chemistry”. He also visited the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where he gave a talk titled “Addressing New Challenges in Chemistry with High-Resolution Spectroscopy”.

We thank our colleagues in India for their kind invitation and hospitality.

On February 18, we took part in the Biofisika Institute Open Day at the Campus de Leioa. The event was aimed at undergraduate and master’s students interested in research and gave an overview of the main research lines and training opportunities at the institute. Our team presented a poster showcasing our research, and the day concluded with a small breakfast that allowed students and researchers to meet and exchange ideas.

Campusa, the Journal of the University of the Basque Country (EHU), has published a press release about our paper “Stepwise Hydration Reveals Conformational Switching in Chiral Prolinol” in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The study demonstrates how just a few water molecules can completely alter the preferred structure of chiral prolinol, a widely used molecular catalyst, with important implications for catalysis and molecular recognition in biological systems.

Dr. Carla Casadevall, Assistant Professor and Group Leader at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), visited our group and gave an interesting talk at the University of the Basque Country entitled “Novel molecular and hybrid systems for photocatalytic CO₂ reduction toward compartmentalized artificial photosynthesis”.

Emilio J. Cocinero visited the University of La Rioja this Monday to give a seminar related to high‑resolution spectroscopy.

Our research group attended the 8th Glycobasque Conference, held on October 23rd and 24th at CICbiomaGUNE (Donostia). During the event, Aran Insausti represented the group and delivered an engaging talk entitled “Probing the Role of Water in the Anomeric Axial–Equatorial Distribution of Pyranoses through Rotational Spectroscopy.”