Biography

Throughout my scientific career, I have focused on the study of different etiological agents of many
human infectious diseases (viruses, bacteria, and parasites), incorporating bioinformatics, molecular evolution, and “omics” data approaches.
In 2006, my work with bioinformatics applied to the study of infectious diseases was awarded with a grant for young researchers sponsored by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation of Colombia to develop junior scientific work at the University of Valle. This work focused on the generation of phylogenetic data of retroviral integrases and the protein modelling of HTLV-I integrase and its interaction with the inhibitory compound 3,5 DCQA. During this fellowship, I was also part of a project related to the genomic characterization of HTLV-I virus in the integration process into the human genome.
In 2007, I joined the Malaria Lab of the University of Antioquia. My first task was to teach a bioinformatics course applied to the study of Malaria. Later, I started a Masters in Biology with the project: “Partial characterization of Plasmodium falciparum trophozoite proteome under treatment with quinine, mefloquine and the natural antiplasmodial diosgenone,” which combined wet-lab (Parasites culture, protein extraction, 2DE electrophoresis, mass spec) and bioinformatics.
In 2011, I moved to Brazil to carry out my PhD studies at the University of Minas Gerais and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), which is an institution part of the Brazilian Ministry of Health that promotes human health and social development and generating and disseminating scientific and technological knowledge. During my PhD I was involved in different projects related to the analysis and annotation of different parasites and vector genomes; my thesis was on the study of host-parasite interactions from the study of the secretome diversity to the computational prediction of biological networks based on protein-protein interactions.
In 2016, I was granted with an EMBO Short Term Fellowship (ASTF 400-2015) to spend 3 months in Denmark to collaborate with Dr. Lars Juhl Jensen at the University of Copenhagen - Center for Protein Research. The aim of this collaboration was to implement biological networks in order to predict protein-protein interactions in host-parasites systems (https://orthohpi.jensenlab.org/).
In 2019, I was appointed as an assistant professor at the Colombian Institute of Tropical Medicine at CES University to lead the institution’s bioinformatics branch and pathogen genomics.