Alves e Silva Thiago Luiz

Thiago is a Research Fellow in the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research, NIH, since 2019. His research interests span vector-borne diseases and host-pathogen interactions. He graduated in Microbiology (M.Sc.and Ph.D.) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) under the supervision of Dr. Angela Hampshire. During his Ph.D., he studied the development of the trypanosomatid Phytomonas serpens in the hemipteran Oncopeltus fasciatus, where he investigated vector immune response to Phytomonas infection and mechanisms of immune evasion. He did an internship at Yale University with Dr. Serap Aksoy, studying the developmental biology of Trypanosoma brucei in Glossina flies, genomics, and markers for mammalian exposure to Glossina. He initiated his postdoctoral training in 2012 at UFRJ, studying the mosquito Aedes aegypti immune response to bacteria and viruses with Dr. Marcos Sorgine. In 2014, he moved to Dr. Marcelo Jacobs Lorena's lab at Johns Hopkins University. He investigated how Plasmodium falciparum uses the fibrinolytic system to facilitate gamete fertilization in the Anopheles gambiae gut and facilitate the sporozoite infection of the mammalian host. In 2016, he continued his postdoctoral training with Dr. Carolina Barillas-Mury at NIH, studying immune evasion mechanisms used by P. falciparum ookinetes. He helped characterize a mosquito midgut receptor for Pfs47, a molecule on the parasite surface involved in the immune escape, and describe a signaling pathway involved in P. falciparum immune evasion. Currently, he works at Dr. Joel Vega Rodriguez's laboratory. He uses transcriptomics, proteomics, and confocal microscopy to explore the development of Plasmodium sporozoites in the midgut, hemolymph, and salivary glands of A. gambiae.