MicroBIO

The incidence of opportunistic microbial infections has increased alarmingly over the past two decades. This rise has been directly associated with a growth in the number of immunosuppressed patients. Infections caused by opportunistic pathogens represent important clinical challenges since they are difficult to prevent, diagnose and treat, mainly because research work addressing epidemiological and pathogenicity studies is limited. With the aim of expanding our knowledge on the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of bacterial and fungal opportunistic pathogens of interest in the clinical setting, the Microbiology of opportunistic pathogens and their impact on human health research group has established the following lines of action: 1. Genotyping of opportunistic isolates; 2. Investigating the strategies that opportunistic pathogens use to cause damage in the host and consequently human infection (host-pathogen interaction); 3. Analysis of new antimicrobial compounds. It is important to highlight that both in vitro and in vivo experimental approaches will be used to develop the group’s research portfolio. Additionally, it should be noted that the in vivo pathogen-host interaction studies will be conducted using the invertebrate host model Galleria mellonella (larvae of the greater wax moth). This model allows multiple aspects of the host-pathogen interaction to be explored, does not raise any ethical problems of animal experimentation and enables results to be obtained rapidly. Likewise, they are easy to handle and maintain and, more importantly, have an innate immune system that, in evolutionary terms, is comparable to that of humans.