Carolina Barillas-Mury
Power Words
Where were you born?
Guatemala City, Guatemala
What school did you attend?
B.S.-Biology, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala; M.D.-Medicine, Universidad Francisco Marroquín de Guatemala, Guatemala; Ph.D.-Biochemistry, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; Post-Doc-Harvard University, Boston, and European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany
What gained you interest in the NIH?
During my post-doctoral training I realized that my main area of interest was the use of molecular tools to understand the interactions between the mosquito immune system and Plasmodium.
What kind of work do you do at the NIH?
I am a Distinguished Investigator working on mosquito immunity and transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. Most of my work is with malaria, but we are also starting some work on Dengue virus transmission. We want to understand the strategies that microbes use to infect, survive and multiply in mosquitoes and infect humans when an infected mosquito bites a second person. Our ultimate goal to disrupt disease transmission and prevent human disease.