Mr Luis Izquierdo

He obtained his PhD degree studying the lipopolysaccharide of Klebsiella pneumoniae, associated with hospital outbreaks and severe community-acquired infections. During his postdoctoral training, funded by Marie Curie and EMBO Fellowships, in the School of Life Sciences (University of Dundee, Scotland), he studied the glycobiology of protozoan parasites that cause neglected tropical diseases. He focused in Trypanosoma brucei that produces African sleeping sickness, with the aim to uncover novel parasitic processes amenable for therapeutic intervention.

He moved to ISGlobal, obtaining in 2010 a Ramón y Cajal contract to study the glycobiology of the malaria parasite. His laboratory research expertise is in the areas of biochemistry and glycobiology, functional genomics of carbohydrate-active enzymes and molecular parasitology.

Lines of Research
Parasite life cycles are very complex, exploiting sequentially various host species to complete the different stages involved in parasitic survival and development. The interactions with their different hosts are critical for the completion of each life stage. These interactions are often based on carbohydrate recognition. Thereby, glycans are crucial for parasite virulence and survival and the study of the glycobiology of these organisms offers unique opportunities to devise novel strategies to tackle parasitic-caused diseases. Furthermore, due to their common location in the cell surface, the study of glycans constitute a fertile ground for the discovery of molecules with vaccine and diagnostic potential.