Jorge Llano is an Assistant Professor of chemistry at MacEwan University. He teaches courses on general and physical chemistry. His research is focused on developing and applying theoretical and computational methods and models to unravel the mechanisms of action of biologically active species, as for instance, in the mutagenic radiation damage of DNA and in enzyme catalysis. He received a B.Sc. in chemistry with the highest honors from the University of Havana, where he taught physical chemistry as a university instructor after graduation. Then, he became a Swedish Institute scholar, first, at Stockholm University, and after, at Uppsala University. There, he developed a quantum statistical model to resolve the sequence of proton, electron and proton-coupled electron transfer steps involved in the radiation damage of DNA nucleobases in solution. After receiving his PhD in biophysical chemistry from Uppsala University, he went to the University of Calgary as an Alberta Ingenuity postdoctoral fellow to perform molecular dynamics simulations of folding of the beta peptide responsible for Alzheimer's disease. He continued his postdoctoral research in computational modelling of enzyme catalysis at the University of Windsor, Ontario, where he also taught general chemistry.

Computational modelling of enzyme catalysis Mechanisms of toxicity of heavy metals Theoretical and computational modelling of electron, proton and proton-coupled electron transfer in proteins and solution

Bushnell, E. A. C., Llano, J., Eriksson, L. A., Gauld, J. W. (2011). Mechanisms of Mutagenic DNA Nucleobase Damages and Their Chemical and Enzymatic Repairs Investigated by Quantum Chemical Methods. In Selected Topics in DNA Repair, Chen, C. C. Ed. InTech: Rijeka. Available from: «http://www.intechopen.com/articles/show/title/mechanisms-of-mutagenic-dna-nucleobase-damages-and-their-chemical-and-enzymatic-repairs-investigated» Llano, J., Gauld, J. W. (2010. Mechanistics of Enzyme Catalysis: From Small to Large Active-Site Models. In Quantum Biochemistry: Electronic Structure and Biological Reactivity, Matta, C. F. Ed. Wiley-VCH: Weinheim. Available from: «http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9783527629213.ch23/summary» Liu, H., Llano, J., Gauld, J. W. (2009). A DFT Study of Nucleobase Dealkylation by the DNA Repair Enzyme AlkB, J. Phys. Chem. B 113, 4887. Available from: «http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp810715t» Llano, J. (2004). Modern Computational Physical Chemistry: An Introduction to Biomolecular Radiation Damage and Phototoxicity, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis: Uppsala. Available from: «http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-4224» Llano, J., Eriksson, L. A. (2002). First Principles Electrochemistry: Electrons and Protons Reacting as Independent Ions, J. Chem. Phys., 117, 10193. Available from: «http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1516786»