The University of Central Florida (UCF) recently showcased the work of Salvador Almagro-Moreno, an assistant professor of medicine at UCF. According to UCF Today, Almagro-Moreno joined UCF in 2017 and established his lab, which focuses on the emergence and evolution of bacterial pathogens.
Almagro-Moreno holds multiple degrees from universities in Spain and Ireland and completed his postdoctoral studies as the Ernest Everett Just Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College.
During his academic career, Almagro-Moreno has published dozens of journal articles and his lab has received more than $1.2 million in grant funding.
He was named a U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER award recipient, and is a recipient of the “Ramon y Cajal” award, the most prestigious given by the Government of Spain to an early career scientist. He is also a member of the National Center for Integrated Coastal Research and the Genomics and Bioinformatics cluster at UCF.
Almagro-Moreno’s work over the past 20 years has earned him respect among his peers and publication in Trends in Microbiology. The premier journal invited him to write a perspective article about the emergence of pathogens, which was published this spring.
One of his most recent scholarly papers was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He also provides expert opinion to the Food and Drug Administration on flesh-eating bacteria and was awarded a National Science Foundation Career Award grant.
More recently, American Scientist magazine asked Almagro-Moreno to write a piece explaining why understanding how pathogens evolve is important. The article is the cover piece of the magazine’s May/June edition.
“This is very exciting,” Almagro-Moreno told UCF Today’s Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala. “By using a holistic approach where we mixed ecology, computational biology, and molecular genetics we are figuring it out. I’m excited because now predicting emergence events is a possibility and that’s critical with the emergence of global pandemics like cholera and COVID-19. We need these tools to help manage disease outbreaks and address public health,” he said, adding that his lab has students and post-docs with a variety of skills. “Together we are making progress. I’m super excited because now we have a clearer picture of how it all works.”
In the American Scientist, he explains:
“Clearly, a plethora of mechanisms and vehicles exist that allow bacteria to acquire new traits from the environment, helping them achieve the quantum leap that can lead to their emergence as pathogens. But evolution does not follow an intentional course, so the quantum leap can also take bacteria in the wrong direction: Acquiring foreign genetic fragments can cause substantial wreckage and disrupt an organism’s well-ingrained physiology. Identifying the environments and conditions that favor microbial risk-taking is an active area of research.”
“It’s critical we keep moving forward putting the pieces together and making sure they fit,” he continued with UCF Today. “We’re still pioneering. As the world changes, it is important to figure out the drivers because COVID is just the latest pathogen to get global attention because of the big impact it had on us. There is more to come, and we need the tools to help us get through it.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been tasked with…
Brown and Caldwell, a leading environmental engineering and construction firm,…
Humboldt State University, one of four campuses within the California…
