Del Portillo Obando

Biography

He studied at the University of Georgia where he received his PhD in 1985 followed by two WHO-postdoctoral trainings at the New York University Medical Centre and the Institut Pasteur where he specialized in molecular biology of malaria. Next, he consolidated an interdisciplinary and multi-Centric malaria research group at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 1990, he did a sabattical year at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), University of Heidelberg. In 2007, he became an ICREA Research Professor and joined the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, and in 2016 co-joined the Institut d’Investigació Germans Trias i Pujol. Cornerstones of this research activity are the discovery of the largest multigene virulent family of human malaria parasites involved in spleen immune evasion and the discovery that reticulocyte-derived exosomes from infections act as intercellular communicators and can be used as a novel vaccine and platform against malaria.

Research Interest

His main research area is the biology of Plasmodium vivax, a neglected human malaria parasite responsible for millions of yearly clinical cases. They are presently looking for mechanistic insights of the role of reticulocyte-derived exosomes, nanovesicles of endocytic origin, in signalling the spleen and the bone marrow to unveil molecular basis of anaemia and splenomegaly and to use this information in rationale vaccine development. To pursue spleen studies, they are implementing the usage of humanized mouse models and microfluidic approaches. In addition, they are exploring the use of exosomes as novel vaccines and biomarkers in vivax malaria aimed for elimination. Last, they are immortalizing human hematopoietic stem cells to develop a continuous in vitro culture system for blood stages of this malaria species, a major technological key-gap to advance studies of this neglected human malaria.