Research expertise

Marco Brustolin graduated with a MSc in Advanced Biotechnology in 2013 from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). He carried out his PhD research in the lab of Dr. Nuria Busquets i Marti and Dr. Nonito Pages Martinez at the Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal. After three years of studies he obtained his PhD in Animal Medicine and Health. Throughout his research career, Marco studied the vector competence of invasive and autochthonous mosquito species of Catalonia for several medical and veterinary arboviruses, including West Nile virus, Rift Valley fever virus, Chikungunya virus and dengue virus.

In 2017, he started a postdoctoral position in the lab of Prof. Jason L. Rasgon at Pennsylvania State University (United States). During his stay at the Rasgon lab, Marco continued to focus on emerging arboviruses, highlighting the important role that Anopheles mosquitoes can play in the transmission of Mayaro virus. In addition, he studied the co-infection and super-infection mechanisms in Aedes aegypti using Zika and Mayaro viruses.

Later on in 2020, he accepted a postdoc at the Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (Spain). Here, Marco established new animal models to investigate the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV2. Moreover, he investigated homologous and heterologous reinfection mechanism, and test the efficacy of different antivirals in Golden Syrian hamster and transgenic mice models under the supervision of Prof. Joaquim Segales i Coma and Dr. Julia Vergara-Alert.

Finally, in 2021 Marco joined Prof. Ruth Muller lab as senior researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (ITM) and continued studying vector-pathogen interactions. The objectives of his research are to understand the dynamics of viral circulation in vectors, and investigate how the interaction of different pathogens can modulate the capacity of mosquito to transmit them.