
Alicia Vallet, an NMR research engineer at the Institute of Structural Biology (CNRS/CEA/Université Grenoble Alpes), has been awarded the CNRS Crystal Medal for her involvement in the Infranalytics national research infrastructure.
After obtaining her Master 2 "Polymers for Advanced Technologies" at Joseph Fourier University, she was recruited as a CNRS Study Engineer to join the "Advanced Solution NMR Methods" team at the Institute of Structural Biology in Grenoble. Very quickly, her strong involvement in the scientific life of the Institute's NMR platform led her to work with multiple interlocutors in very varied fields of chemistry and its interfaces with biology, health, ecology... She quickly assumed responsibility for the solid-state NMR part of the platform and participated in several scientific projects focused on the structural characterization of large protein complexes by solid-state NMR. Projects that resulted in publications in high-impact journals, such as on the dynamics of complex biomolecular assemblies.
"Diversity is at the heart of my activity, thanks to the wide variety of techniques (liquid and solid NMR, EPR, mass spectroscopy) that I had to train in. But also to the many national and international projects using the platform leading me to interact with many teams. And now, thanks to the relationships with manufacturers for whom the projects, centered on new materials, take me from the environment to health, agri-food…"
"For an industrialist, approaching the academic scientific world is not easy. Two worlds that rarely interact and have neither the same expectations nor the same constraints. Hence the idea of setting up a one-stop shop for them to advise them, but above all to help them clearly define their needs in order to best direct them to the most relevant contacts."
