Dr. Beatriz Perdiguero is a Ph.D. researcher in the Poxvirus and Vaccine group. In 2004, she obtained her Ph.D. degree (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) in the field of vaccinia virus morphogenesis. In 1997, she graduated in Biology (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. In the last three years, she has been involved in the generation of more immunogenic and safer vaccine candidates against HIV using poxvirus strains.
Dr. Rocío Coloma is currently a Postdoctoral researcher in Preventive Medicine, Public Health, and Microbiology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Facultad de Medicina. She completed her Ph.D. studies in Molecular Biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2009. She continued until 2013 in the group of Dr. Juan Ortín as a postdoctoral fellow, carrying out structural and functional analysis of Native Influenza Virus Ribonucleoproteins. In 2020, during the global pandemic, she worked in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, developing a colorimetric sensor to easily detect the viral RNA, with Dr. Alvaro Somoza at IMDEA Nanociencia. This project resulted in three papers.
Dr. Mariano Esteban is a Professor of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid, Spain, a member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Pharmacy, and former Director of the National Center of Biotechnology-CNB (1992–2003). He returned to Spain in 1992 after 22 years abroad, mostly in the USA where he was a Professor of Biochemistry and Microbiology at the Health Science Center at Brooklyn, State University of New York. He is an internationally recognized scientist with a long experience in the molecular basis of pathogenesis by infectious agents. In particular, his group has made important contributions to understanding the life cycle of the vaccinia virus, virus–host cell interactions, and the mechanism of action of interferons. He used this knowledge to develop vaccinia virus vectors as candidate vaccines against diseases like AIDS, chikungunya, zika, ebola, HCV, malaria, and leishmaniasis. His group, in collaboration with colleagues in New York, pioneered a heterologous prime/boost approach that has gained acceptance as an immunization protocol against multiple infectious agents. Esteban’s group has developed candidate vaccines against HIV/AIDS that are in clinical trials, as well as against SARS-CoV-2.
Dr. Carmen Elena Gómez is currently a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), Spain. She obtained a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry with honors from the University of Havana (UH), Cuba (1994), and her Doctorate in Molecular Biology from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Spain, with the qualification of outstanding "Cum Laude" (2003). Between 1994-2000, she worked as an associate researcher in the Vaccines Department of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB, Cuba), evaluating different vaccine prototypes against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), studies that she has continued and expanded in the Poxvirus and Vaccines group at the CNB (2000-Present). Her research in the last 25 years has focused on understanding the molecular basis of poxvirus pathogenesis and its interaction with the host to transfer basic knowledge to the clinic through the development of vaccine candidates against infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C (HCV), Malaria, Leishmania, and COVID-19.
Dr. Susana Guerra is currently affiliated with the Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She has been working in the Poxvirus and Vaccine Lab since 2001. Her work is mainly related to poxvirus–host interactions using functional genomics. In 2000, she obtained her Ph.D. degree (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) in the field of virology. In 1995, she graduated in Biology (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid.
