Ludovica Aisa, Best Poster Award at the IBER25 Conference

Ludovica Aisa, a predoctoral researcher at CiTIUS, was recognized with one of the two Best PhD Poster Awards at the IBER25 Conference, an event recently held in Vigo and jointly organized by the physics societies of Spain (RSEF) and Portugal (SP Física), through the Atomic and Molecular Physics Group (GEFAM).

During the meeting, the researcher from the Laboratory of Intangible Realities (IRL) presented a work entitled Human-biased trajectories and interactive MD in Virtual Reality; a research developed within the framework of the NANOVR project -led by ERC Oportunius senior researcher David Glowacki-, which presents initial results on the kinetic process of the GluHUT macrorreceptor and sugar binding, using iMD-VR and Molecular Dynamics techniques.

The awarded work explores how humans can interact directly with molecular systems in virtual reality. By embedding molecular dynamics (MD) simulations into an immersive 3D environment (an approach known as interactive MD in Virtual Reality (iMD-VR)) scientists can “reach out and touch” molecules, observing in real time how they move and interact. In this study, Ludovica applied this technique to investigate how different sugars (glucose, galactose and fructose) bind to GluHUT, estimating the energy needed to unbind each molecule. Her results show that glucose binds more strongly to the receptor than the other sugars, demonstrating how human-guided exploration, combined with advanced computational simulations, can accelerate our understanding of molecular interactions.

The meeting, which brought together professionals from academia and industry from both countries to share advances in atomic and molecular physics, also served to highlight the growing contribution of CiTIUS (a research centre co-funded by the European Union through the Galicia ERDF Programme 2021–2027) to international research in physics and applied artificial intelligence.