Católica Medical School invites you to participate in the seminar on “mRNA vaccines: development process and opportunity for Tuberculosis vaccination", which will take place on June 20th 2024 a 12:30 pm at Católica Medical School Multicare auditorium.

Keynote speaker: Laura Matarazzo, PhD

hosted by Paulo Bettencourt

After studying Pharmacy at the University of Bordeaux (France), Laura Matarazzo joined the Centre for Infection and Immunity of Lille at Institut Pasteur de Lille (France), for her Master and PhD between 2015 and 2020. Her research work aimed at evaluating an innovative therapeutic strategy combining conventional oral antibiotherapy with intranasal administration of the immunomodulator flagellin for the treatment of drug-resistant bacterial pneumonia in mouse models, which will soon be translated into Phase I clinical trial with the FAIR project (Flagellin Aerosol therapy as an Immunomodulatory adjunct to the antibiotic treatment of drug-Resistant bacterial pneumonia).

In 2021, She took up a post-doctoral position at Trinity Biomedical Science Institute, part of Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), in the group of Prof. Padraic Fallon, to study the joint inflammation mechanisms during haemophilic arthropathy, focusing on the impact of genetic background on the development and progression of the disease, using different haemophilia mouse models.

In 2022, she joined Professor Paulo Bettencourt's research group at Católica Medical School to work on mRNA vaccine development. This project, in collaboration with the Spanish company DIVERSA Technology, aims to develop a functional mRNA vaccine platform, combining state-of-the-art technology for the in vitro production of mRNA, with lipid nanoemulsions developed by DIVERSA as a delivery system, and to apply it to the development of a vaccine against tuberculosis or other diseases for which conventional vaccines have failed to provide effective protection.