I am a Medical Doctor by training, and practised medicine as General Practitioner for several years in my home country, Uruguay. However, since my undergraduate studies I became fascinated with genetics and molecular biology and decided to enrol in a Master degree in science followed by a PhD degree in Molecular Parasitology. My post-doctoral training was at the George Washington University (Washington DC, USA), where I developed protocols for culture and genetic manipulation of parasitic worms. In 2015, I moved to UK to be appointed Senior Staff Scientist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and established a research platform for the development of parasite functional genomics projects. In the context of a UKRI- Future Leaders Fellowship awarded in 2022, I established my own research programme at Aberystwyth University, Wales. Two years later (October 2024), I moved to Oxford to be appointed Associate Professor in Molecular Parasitology at the Department of Biology, and Tutorial Fellow in Biology at Christ Church College, University of Oxford.
My research interests focus on the use of cellular and molecular biology approaches coupled with genomics to study Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD). My work is centred on the fundamental biology of helminths, parasite development and interactions with the host. Parasitic worms in the genus Schistosoma are the infectious agents of schistosomiasis, a major NTD that affects more than 250 million people and kill several thousand annually in Low and Middle-Income Countries. The disease is associated with liver inflammation and fibrosis, or kidney and bladder pathology (including bladder cancer), depending on the parasite species. Novel control strategies are urgently needed to break the complete reliance on a single drug (praziquantel). Moreover, the threat of drug resistance is emerging in the field as praziquantel has been used in mass administration programmes for decades now. Understanding fundamental aspects of the molecular and developmental biology of these parasites and how they interact with the hosts is critical to expose vulnerabilities that can be exploited to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Schistosomes have a remarkable sexual biology; among flatworms, schistosomes have separate sexes that are genetically determined. Our overall goal is to discover molecular signals, cells and pathways that are involved in sexual commitment, differentiation, and dimorphism establishment. Understanding these aspects of the schistosome sexual biology would lead to strategies to block life cycle progression and reduce pathology.
