BIO
Elena Gómez Díaz (Barcelona, 1979) is a Ramón y Cajal researcher employed at Estación Biológica de Doñana (Spanish National Research Center).
PROJECT
She has a PhD in Biology, and has focused her work on the study of infectious diseases. This time, her aim is to study the natural phenotypic plasticity of the parasites that cause human malaria in an region of endemic transmission (Burkina-Faso, Africa).
To do so, she will isolate and cultivate parasites obtained from the blood of human carriers and carry out experimental infections of three species of mosquitoes, which are the natural vectors of human malaria in the area of study.
This project is innovative because it represents an advance in the knowledge of the biology of adaptation of the species of parasites that cause human malaria over their whole life cycle. By comparing them it will be possible to identify key aspects in the virulence and pathogenicity of the parasite, allowing more effective strategies to be developed to eradicate malaria.