Affiliation: Instituto de Biología Integrativa de Sistemas (Universitat de València-CSIC)

Fields or areas of research Virology

Pilar Domingo-Calap is a biologist interested in the biomedical implications of viruses. She obtained her biology degree and master in biodiversity at the Universitat de València (UV), both with honors. During her PhD (2012, UV, with honors), she investigated the fitness effects of mutations in phages, and their influence on phage evolution. Her PhD was extended with two internships at the Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (CNRS, France), where she studied the mutation rate of HIV-1. In 2013, she joined a Laboratoire d'Excelence (INSERM, Université de Strasbourg), where she started a new research line aimed at characterizing BK polyomavirus genetic diversity and immune escape in transplant recipients. In 2016, she obtained a Juan de la Cierva Incorporación contract to join the Instituto de Biología Integrativa de Sistemas (UV-CSIC). There, she extended her work on viral pathogenesis and immunity. Since 2020 she is Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Instituto de Biología Integrativa de Sistemas leading her own group, Environmental and Biomedical Virology Lab (EnBiVir).

Her main research line, hunting viruses from the environment to be used in biomedicine, promotes phages as a promising alternative treatment against multidrug-resistant bacteria. She has been awarded national and international grants to pursue her research as principal investigator (ESCMID Research Grant, Retos-Investigación, VLC-Biomed, and SEJIGENT). Additionally, she has signed transfer agreements and established collaborations with national hospitals, which will allow her to directly explore phage therapy in the clinical setting, mainly as compassionate use. Recently, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led her to conduct epidemiological surveillance studies of the virus through sewage and to study alternative transmission routes (FONDO COVID-19 ISCIII, CSIC PTI+ Global Health. She has 50 publications, including scientific articles in journals such as PLoS Genetics, PLoS Pathogens, Nature Communications or Nature Microbiology, and book chapters, and has been reviewer of more than 100 manuscripts of international journals.

Pilar is involved in teaching activities, mainly in Genetics, Evolution, Virology, and Phage Therapy at UV, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo, Howest International University, Université Franche-Comté, University of Applied Sciences Groningen, and Université de Strasbourg. Finally, Pilar is strongly involved in science outreach. She is leading a FECYT project called SUPERFAGO and several workshops in outreach activities, and has been invited speaker in special editions in Women in Science and STEM activities and has been collaborating with international and national media.