Research Interests

I am a computational biologist with expertise in bacterial genomics, antibiotic resistance, and applied bacteriology. My research focuses on the applications of whole-genome sequencing as a basic research, surveillance, and diagnostics tool for bacterial infections. I use advanced population-genomics approaches, such as Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS), to characterise the genetic basis of bacterial phenotypes and adaptation. I have conducted large genomic surveillance studies to map the spread of bacterial clones, particularly applied to study the epidemiology of nosocomial pathogens. I have also worked in the development of bioinformatics analysis pipelines, easy-to-use genome interpretation tools, standards for genome analyses and interpretation, and the identification of genetic markers for epidemiological surveillance and diagnosis of bacterial pathogens needed to extract actionable information from bacterial genomic data. Overall, I have 12 years of experience in my field and have published over 50 peer-reviewed papers.

Professional and Education Background

I am a principal investigator (Científico titular) at the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia (IBV, Spanish National Research Council) where I lead the Applied Microbial Genomics Unit. Before that I was a senior Staff Scientist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (UK), and an Assistant Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), supported by an Institutional Strategic Support Fund Fellowship (ISSF), funded by Wellcome & LSHTM. I joined LSHTM in July 2016 as an Research Fellow (post-doc) funded by a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship, after joining the research group led by Prof. Sharon Peacock at the University of Cambridge, UK. In October 2014, I completed my Ph.D. at LSHTM under the supervision of Prof. Taane Clark, which focused on strain genotyping and drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using whole genome sequencing. I obtained my degree in Biotechnology from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2010, Spain, followed by an MSc in Bioinformatics in Cranfield University, UK.