Research Portfolio

Understanding vector competence, molecule by molecule.

Our group investigates the molecular dialogues between insect vectors, pathogens, and vertebrate hosts. By decoding immune and metabolic mechanisms, we develop novel approaches to disrupt disease transmission cycles.

Core line

Insect immunity.

Everything the group does starts here: how an insect recognises an infection, what it does about it, and what that response costs. Three questions organise the work — whether the response carries memory, how metabolism constrains it, and how far back in animal evolution its parts go.

01
Immune memory · epigenetics

Does an insect remember an infection?

Insects have no antibodies and no adaptive immune system, yet a mosquito that survives one infection can meet the next differently. We described a mechanism for that memory in primed mosquitoes, in which a double peroxidase and the histone acetyltransferase AgTip60 sustain the primed state — placing epigenetic regulation at the centre of how a vector's immune response is set.

Trained immunityEpigeneticsAgTip60Mosquitoes
Key reviews
From the group
Ilustração da linha de memória imune inata
FIG 01IMMUNE MEMORY
02
Immunometabolism

What the blood meal does to the vector.

Every blood meal is a metabolic snapshot of whoever the mosquito just bit. We have shown that blood from diet-induced obese and diabetic mice remodels the Aedes aegypti gut and lowers Zika virus infection, and that a Western diet in the vertebrate host alters mosquito gene expression, lifespan and fertility — making host metabolic state a variable in transmission rather than a background detail.

Zika virusAedes aegyptiObesityDiabetes
Key reviews
From the group
Ilustração da linha de imunometabolismo
FIG 02IMMUNOMETABOLISM
03
Comparative immunology

How old are the parts of immunity?

Ideas such as trained immunity were built largely from mammalian studies, yet the machinery of innate immunity is far older than vertebrates. We have traced the major components of innate immunity across animals and examined what mammalian models can and cannot tell us about insects — the framework that lets findings move between the two.

ComparativeInvertebratesTLR / NF-κB
Key reviews
From the group
Ilustração da linha de imunologia comparada
FIG 03COMPARATIVE IMMUNITY
Derived lines

Where that question travels.

The same question — what an immune response does and what it costs — changes shape depending on the scale you ask it at: a whole country, a single epithelium, or a crop pest.

04
Epidemiological modelling

Applying epidemiological models to vector transmission.

Where a mosquito can live, how many there are, and where people actually fall ill are three different maps. This line applies species distribution and statistical modelling to vector-borne transmission, combining climatic, environmental and epidemiological data. The aim is to give the questions asked at the bench a geographic frame.

BRT / SDMAedes aegyptiDengueSpatial modellingClimate
Key reviews
Ilustração da linha de modelagem epidemiológica
FIG 04EPIDEMIOLOGICAL MODELLING
05
Cell biology · ultrastructure

The gut, seen up close.

The midgut is the first thing a pathogen meets after an insect feeds — the frontier where digestion and infection are decided. We work on how that tissue is built and how it functions, from the secretory goblet cells we characterised in the velvetbean caterpillar to the volume and super-resolution microscopy now used to reconstruct it in three dimensions.

MidgutUltrastructureFIB-SEM · SBF-SEMElectron microscopy
Key reviews
From the group
Ilustração da linha de ultraestrutura
FIG 05ULTRASTRUCTURE
06
Pest models · biological control

Immunity as a lever for pest control.

The velvetbean caterpillar Anticarsia gemmatalis, a major soybean pest, is where the group's immunology meets agriculture. We have characterised its midgut receptors for the Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1Ac toxin and an antimicrobial peptide from the insect itself. The open question is how far its immune and barrier responses can be modulated to make biological control more effective and more durable.

Anticarsia gemmatalisBacillus thuringiensisInsect immunityBiological control
Key reviews
From the group
Ilustração da linha de modelos de praga
FIG 06PEST MODELS
Additional line

An older molecule, running underneath.

One thread in the group predates the rest and cuts across it, sitting at the meeting point of cell physiology, metabolism, virulence and immunity.

07
Cell physiology · metabolism · virulence

Inorganic polyphosphate.

Inorganic polyphosphate is one of life's oldest molecules — a simple chain of phosphates found from bacteria to human cells — and it sits where cell physiology, metabolism, virulence and immunity meet. Our work introduced a DAPI-based method to see and quantify polyP stores in situ, showed it inhibits a protease activity in insect eggs, and examined phosphate sensing and polyP storage in fungi, where it bears on virulence.

polyPDAPIPhosphate sensingVirulence
Key reviews
From the group
Ilustração da linha de polifosfato inorgânico
FIG 07POLYPHOSPHATE
Infrastructure

Infrastructure & collaborative network.

Our research leverages the Vector Insects Platform (Plataforma de Insetos Vetores) at IBCCF/UFRJ and the Advanced Microscopy Unit at CENABIO/UFRJ, supported by a network of international collaborators.

5
Research lines
15+
Years of research
4
Countries · collab.
40+
Peer-reviewed papers