Maria Mota

GIMM, Lisbon School of Medicine

Maria M. Mota is a biologist and leading malaria researcher, currently GIMM’s CEO. She earned her degree in Biology and a Master’s in Immunology from the University of Porto and completed a PhD in Molecular Parasitology at University College London. After postdoctoral work with Vitor Nussenzweig at NYU, she returned to Portugal to lead malaria research at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and later became a principal investigator and Executive Director of iMM. Her work investigates both liver and blood stages of Plasmodium infection. An EMBO member and former HHMI international researcher, she has received major honors including the Pessoa Prize and national decorations for scientific merit. She is also an advocate for gender equality and public engagement in science.

Bonnie Bassler

Princeton University

Bonnie Bassler is a molecular microbiologist at Princeton University renowned for discovering quorum sensing, the chemical language bacteria use to communicate and coordinate behavior. Her work transformed understanding of microbial cooperation and pathogenesis and is guiding new therapies that disrupt bacterial communication. She is the Squibb Professor and Chair of Molecular Biology at Princeton and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Bassler is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A MacArthur Fellow and recipient of the Wolf Prize and National Medal of Science, she is also a dedicated educator and advocate for diversity and public engagement in science.

Carolina Lucas

Yale University

Carolina Lucas is an Assistant Professor of Immunobiology and member of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Yale University. She earned her Ph.D. from UFRJ/ETH in Brazil and Switzerland and completed postdoctoral training in Yale’s Akiko Iwasaki lab, studying emerging viruses including Zika, CHIKV, and SARS CoV 2. Her research bridges clinical and basic immunology, focusing on primary immunodeficiencies, autoinflammatory diseases, and immune dysregulation in infection and vaccination. During the COVID 19 pandemic, Lucas helped coordinate longitudinal immune profiling of hospitalized patients, identifying maladapted immune responses that correlate with severe disease and advancing understanding of host virus dynamics. The Lucas Lab studies human immune responses to emerging viruses and vaccines across age groups, especially older adults, to inform new therapies and vaccination strategies.

Carolina Tropini

University of British Columbia

Carolina Tropini is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver Campus) in the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Her research integrates bioengineering, microbiology, and physics to study how physical constraints and spatial structure shape microbial behavior in the human gut and other host-associated ecosystems. A Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator, Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D Scholar, CIFAR Fellow, and Michael Smith Foundation Scholar, she earned her B.Sc. and Ph.D. in biophysics at Stanford and completed postdoctoral training in microbiology there. The Tropini lab combines imaging, microfluidics, and computational tools to engineer microbes and develop precision approaches to improve human health.

Charles Rice

Rockefeller University

Charles Rice is an American virologist and Professor at Rockefeller University in New York, best known for his groundbreaking work on the hepatitis C virus. He shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that enabled reliable blood screening and the development of curative antiviral therapies, fundamentally transforming the understanding and treatment of viral hepatitis. Born in 1952 in Sacramento, California, Rice earned a B.S. in zoology from the University of California, Davis, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Caltech, where he began his lifelong focus on RNA viruses. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Rice has received many of the field’s highest honors, including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Robert Koch Prize, and the InBev-Baillet Latour Health Prize. A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the AAAS, he has authored more than 400 scientific publications and is widely recognized as one of the leading figures in modern virology.

Daniel Mucida

Rockefeller University

Daniel Mucida is a Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at The Rockefeller University, leading the Laboratory of Mucosal Immunology. His research explores how the immune system of the intestinal mucosa balances defence against pathogens with tolerance to beneficial microbes and dietary antigens — fundamental for health and disease. Mucida’s work has revealed key mechanisms of immune activity and tolerance in the gut, with implications for understanding food allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, barrier immunity, neuro-immune communication, and colorectal cancer. Born in Brazil, he earned his B.S. in biochemistry and immunology from the Federal University of Minas Gerais and his Ph.D. jointly from the University of São Paulo and New York University, followed by postdoctoral work at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. Since joining Rockefeller in 2010, he has risen to full professor and been recognised with awards including the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award and the Pershing Square Sohn Prize.

Jeffery Barrick

Michigan State University

Jeffrey Barrick is a Professor at Michigan State University and a leader in experimental evolution and microbial genomics. Trained in applied molecular evolution and bacterial genetics, he completed postdoctoral work with Richard Lenski and Charles Ofria studying genome evolution and artificial life. He is widely known for his role in the long-term E. coli evolution experiment, tracking over 75,000 generations to reveal mechanisms of adaptation and mutation. Previously a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, he led major federally funded projects engineering insect symbionts. A fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and recipient of NIH and NSF CAREER honors, Barrick studies microbial evolution and microbiome engineering, especially in honey bees and aphids.

Joy Bergelson

New York University

Bio coming soon.

Karina Xavier

GIMM

Karina Xavier is a Group Leader at GIMM, where she studies inter-species bacterial communication and its impact on the mammalian gut microbiota. She earned her PhD from Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier in 1999, working on carbohydrate metabolism in Archaea, and later developed her research on bacterial signaling during a postdoc at Princeton University (2000–2006), where she demonstrated that autoinducer-2 enables interspecies quorum sensing. Her group later established an animal model showing that manipulating quorum sensing in the mouse gut can reshape microbiota composition. More recently, her work revealed that gut bacteria can rapidly evolve in response to diet, affecting host physiology. Her current research focuses on microbiota recovery after antibiotics and dietary imbalance. She received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Early Career Award (2012) and a Human Frontier Science Program grant (2024).

Luísa Figueiredo

GIMM, Lisbon School of Medicine

Luísa Figueiredo is a Group Leader at GIMM and an invited teacher at Lisbon School of Medicine. She studies host–pathogen interactions with a focus on Trypanosoma brucei, the parasite that causes sleeping sickness. She earned her PhD at the Institut Pasteur and completed postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University. Her lab investigates the molecular mechanisms that enable parasites to evade host defenses, combining CRISPR, single-cell approaches, and genetic screens to study gene regulation and parasite adaptation within host tissues. An EMBO member since 2023, Figueiredo leads an international research team and is supported by funding from the ERC, HHMI, EMBO, and the La Caixa Foundation, advancing fundamental knowledge in parasite biology.

Marco A. Coelho

Duke University Medical Center

Marco A. Coelho is an Assistant Research Professor in the Duke University Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, EUA. He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from NOVA University Lisbon and currently studies how pathogenic fungi and their closely related environmental relatives evolve, with a primary focus on the yeast genus Cryptococcus, which includes species that can cause life-threatening disease in humans. His research integrates comparative genomics with experimental approaches to examine how genome architecture, sexual reproduction, and recombination shape adaptation. A central focus of his current work is to clarify how environmental lineages occupy specific ecological niches, and how shifts in habitat and selective pressures can shape traits that support survival under host-like stresses. Through collaborative initiatives that combine genome sequencing with quantitative phenotyping and experimental evolution, he is working to link genomic variation to stress tolerance and other virulence-associated traits, with the broader goal of expanding known yeast diversity and improving our ability to anticipate and track emerging fungal threats.

Matthew Chang

National University of Singapore

Bio coming soon.

Miguel Soares

GIMM, Lisbon School of Medicine

Miguel Soares is a Group Leader at GIMM and a Professor at Lisbon School of Medicine. He trained in biology and cellular biology at the University of Louvain, earning a PhD in 1995, and conducted research at Harvard Medical School with Fritz H. Bach. His work uncovered tissue-protective mechanisms in immunity, including the role of heme oxygenase-1 and carbon monoxide in preventing inflammatory damage. Since 2004, his lab in Portugal has pioneered the concept of disease tolerance, revealing how heme, iron metabolism, and host–microbe interactions protect against malaria and sepsis. Ranked among the world’s top 2% scientists, Soares studies organism-level regulation of inflammation to develop new therapies for immune-mediated disease. He is an EMBO member and recipient of major awards including the Pfizer Prize and the Marian Koshland Award. His research is supported by competitive funding from the ERC, NIH, Gates Foundation, and FCT, among others.

Roy Kishony

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Roy Kishony is a Professor at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and a leading authority on the evolution of antibiotic resistance. His research combines genomics, computational biology, machine learning, and systems biology to understand how resistance emerges, spreads, and can be predicted or prevented. By integrating quantitative experiments, clinical studies, and mathematical modeling, his lab studies microbial evolution within the human body and explores drug combinations designed to slow or even reverse resistance. Kishony’s work spans pathogen genomics, digital health, and microbial ecology, aiming to transform infectious disease diagnostics and develop resistance-resilient treatment strategies.

Yasmine Belkaid

Institut Pasteur

Yasmine Belkaid is President of the Institut Pasteur in Paris and head of the Metaorganism laboratory. Born in Algeria in 1968 and trained in biochemistry, she earned her PhD at the Institut Pasteur before completing postdoctoral research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. She went on to lead major research programs in Cincinnati and at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where she founded the NIAID Microbiome Program. Her work uncovered fundamental roles of the microbiota and diet in forming immune responses, tissue homeostasis, and protection against infection, and explores links between immunity, development, and maternal–child health. A member of multiple national academies and Fellow of the Royal Society, she has received major international honors including the Lurie Prize, the Robert Koch Award, and the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award.

Miguel Prudêncio

GIMM, Lisbon School of Medicine

Miguel Prudêncio is a Group Leader at GIMM and Principal Investigator at the Lisbon School of Medicine. He completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia, UK, and a postdoc at the Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on the liver stage of Plasmodium infection and its potential for anti-malarial intervention. His interests include unveiling novel aspects of the biology and immunology of Plasmodium infection, identifying drugs with antiplasmodial activity, establishing new experimental methodologies to study the malaria parasite, and contributing to the development and optimization of whole-sporozoite vaccination against malaria. He is also a co-founder of the spin-off RoPlaVac, was involved in setting up iMM’s Task Force for SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics, and has a keen interest on science communication, particularly in what relates to vaccine literacy.

Francisco Garcia

Val d’Hebron Hospital Campus

Bio coming soon.

Marta Entradas

ISCTE-IUL and London School of Economics

Bio coming soon.

Rita Sá Machado

General Director of Health

Bio coming soon.

Emma Yee

Cell Press

Emma Yee is a chemical engineer whose research spans experimental biology and engineering, from motor proteins and biosensors to jet engine combustion at NASA. She earned her Ph.D. at MIT, where she developed rapid, accessible molecular diagnostic technologies for infectious diseases. Her work focuses on point-of-care nucleic acid assays for diseases such as tuberculosis, aiming to create low-cost, high-performance devices for use in resource-limited settings. By designing polymerization-based signal amplification systems that require minimal infrastructure, Yee seeks to make quantitative diagnostics more equitable and globally accessible.

Emily White

Nature Microbiology

Bio coming soon.

Joana Osório

Science Magazine

Bio coming soon.

Kevin Foster

University of Oxford

Kevin Foster is Chair of Microbiology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. An evolutionary biologist by training, he earned his undergraduate degree at Cambridge and a PhD from the University of Sheffield, and previously led a lab at Harvard as a Bauer Fellow. His research explores how bacteria compete, cooperate, and persist within complex microbiome communities, with the goal of predicting and manipulating gut ecosystems to improve health. Foster’s lab combines ecological theory with experimental microbiology to study microbial interactions, including toxin-mediated competition and ecological networks, helping reveal the rules that govern evolving microbial communities.

Isabel Gordo

GIMM

Isabel Gordo is a Group Leader at GIMM, where she studies bacterial evolution in the context of the gut microbiome. Trained in Physics, she earned a PhD in Evolutionary Genetics from the University of Edinburgh in 2002 and conducted postdoctoral research at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, becoming a principal investigator in 2004. Her work examines how bacteria adapt to stressful environments such as antibiotics and immune pressures, and she currently holds an ERC Advanced Grant to study intrahost evolution in health and disease. Gordo’s lab combines theoretical and experimental approaches using E. coli and mouse models to understand the forces shaping microbial diversity and resistance. She founded the Portuguese Society for Evolutionary Biology and is an elected member of EMBO and the European Academy of Microbiology.

Waldan Kwong

GIMM

Waldan Kwong is a Group Leader at the GIMM, where he studies the ecology and evolution of microbial symbiosis. He earned his PhD at Yale, helping establish bees as a model for gut microbiome research, and completed postdoctoral work at the University of British Columbia investigating coral microbiomes using genomics and transcriptomics. Since joining Gulbenkian in 2022, his lab examines the genetic, evolutionary, and ecological foundations of microbe–microbe and host–microbe interactions, using social bees as a primary model. His group develops genetic tools and genomic resources to understand how microbial communities function and support bee health, with implications for pollinator conservation and agriculture. Kwong has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers and is supported by FCT, ERC, and EMBO.

Ilana Gabanyi

GIMM

Ilana Gabanyi is a Group Leader at GIMM studying communication between gut bacteria and the nervous system. She completed her undergraduate and master’s training at the University of São Paulo and earned a PhD at Rockefeller University under Daniel Mucida, investigating neuroimmune interactions in the gut. During her postdoctoral work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, she showed that microbe-derived molecules can reach the brain and influence neuronal activity. Her NeuroBiota Lab now explores how bacterial signals shape brain function across age and sex, combining brain imaging, microbial genomics, and mouse models to uncover mechanisms of the microbiota–gut–brain axis.

Marco Fumasoni

GIMM

Marco Fumasoni is a Group Leader at GIMM, where he studies how fundamental cellular processes evolve. Trained as a molecular geneticist, he is interested in the interplay between genome maintenance mechanisms and evolutionary forces in shaping cell biology. And in understanding how cells replicate damaged DNA and how these processes influence genome evolution and drive cell function. Marco Fumasoni earned his PhD in Molecular Oncology from the European School of Molecular Medicine (IFOM, Italy) and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University, where he combined experimental evolution with quantitative approaches to explore the dynamics of genome change. In his research work he integrates molecular, cellular, experimental, and computational methods to understand how essential cellular mechanisms evolve.

Ana Espada de Sousa

GIMM
Lisbon School of Medicine

Ana Espada de Sousa is a Group Leader at GIMM, and a Professor at Lisbon School of Medicine, leading a research program integrating clinical and basic science to uncover mechanisms of immune failure and recovery. After completing her formal training as an MD Internist and a subsequent PhD in HIV/AIDS immunopathogenesis, Ana Espada de Sousa has pursued a full-time research career dedicated to human immunodeficiencies. Her research group integrates clinical and basic investigators to foster the scientific development of MDs and biomedical researchers through innovative approaches to immunological reconstitution. She served as President of the Portuguese Society for Immunology (SPI, 2009-12) and as a Member of the Executive Board of the Portuguese National Ethics Committee for Clinical Research (CEIC, 2017-24). Among her scientific contributions, she helped establish hyperimmune activation as a key determinant of HIV disease progression. Her work represents a reference source for the study of HIV-2 infection, a naturally occurring model of attenuated HIV disease. Other relevant areas of research have been the development of regulatory T cells in the human thymus, naïve CD4 T cell homeostasis, and inborn errors of immunity.