Dr David Fairen-Jimenez is a Royal Society University Research Fellow (URF) and Reader in Molecular Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, where he leads the Adsorption & Advanced Material Laboratory (AAML). His research into the application of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in energy applications and nanoscale drug delivery is underpinned by fundamental studies into molecular recognition and adsorption processes in nanoporous materials. His expertise has been built through integrated research which combines 1) synthesis and engineering of novel nanomaterials, 2) molecular modelling, 3) drug delivery processes for cancer treatment, and 4) sustainable industrial applications. He leads a multidisciplinary team of chemists, chemical engineers and biotechnologists.

He graduated with a PhD in porous materials in chemistry, under the supervision of Prof Carlos Moreno-Castilla, from the University of Granada in 2006. He then worked with Prof. Tina Duren at the University of Edinburgh, studying adsorption in metal-organic frameworks combining advanced experimental techniques molecular and modelling for the design of novel functional materials. He expanded his research at Northwestern University (USA), working with Prof. Randall Snurr and collaborating with Profs. Hupp, Farha and Stoddart, and implementing new computational methods for H2 storage and toxic industrial compounds capture. He returned to UK as a URF in Cambridge in late 2012, to initiate his independent career.

To date David has published multiple papers patents and has given many invited seminars and lectures at conferences and universities around the world. He is also a founder and Director at Immaterial Labs Ltd., a MOF manufacturing company for gas storage and air filtration, and Tarsis Technologies Ltd., a company for slower and controlled delivery of drugs using amorphous MOFs. In 2016 he was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant (€1.9M) for the “Design of NanoMOFs Capsules for Drug Delivery and Bioimaging” in cancer diagnosis and therapy. In 2018 he was a coPI of the EPSRC IRC hard-to-treat cancer (£10M). He has raised £17M in multiple projects.