My research career has been focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms employed by bacteriophages to promote its own dissemination and mediate the transfer of bacterial DNA specially focusing on the impact it has in the pathogenicity of the host. I started my scientific training by obtaining a predoctoral fellowship from the Generalitat Valenciana to study the horizontal transfer of genetic information in Staphylococcus aureus under the supervision of Prof. José R. Penadés. During my PhD I worked on different projects to understand the packaging process using bacteriophages infecting S. aureus as models. These studies led to the characterization of a new family of packaging regulators in bacteriophages infecting different species of Gram-positive bacteria (Ferrer et al., 2011; Quiles-Puchalt et al., 2013). Moreover, this work also led to the discovery of a new packaging mechanism present in one third of the sequenced staphylococcal phages (Quiles-Puchalt et al., 2014). As a result of my PhD, I published 3 papers as a first author or joint first author in top journals of the microbiology field and 1 paper as a second author resulting from a collaborative project with Dr. Pilar Garcia’s lab (IPLA-CSIC). I obtained my PhD in 2013 and I was awarded the outstanding doctorate achievement award by the Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera.

In 2014 I started working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow where I studied the relationship between staphylococcal bacteriophages and the S. aureus pathogenicity islands and their contribution to the virulence of S. aureus (Frigols et al., 2015; Maiques et al., 2016) In addition, I was also involved in the characterisation of a new family of MGEs widespread in Gram-positive bacteria including lactococci, pneumococci, streptococci and enterococci (Martinez-Rubio et al., 2017). I was involved in the discovery of a new phage-mediated bacterial DNA transduction mechanism (Chen et al., 2018). The gene transfer rates observed using this new mechanism of transduction, named lateral transduction are exceedingly high compared to the previous ones described, making it one of the most important contributor factors to the rapid evolution of bacteria (Humphrey et al., 2021).

In 2019 I started leading a novel line of research in a newly discovered area in the field of mobile genetic elements interactions, investigating communication systems present in bacteriophages infecting B. subtilis. This effort continued in 2021 when I moved to the Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology (CBRB ) Imperial College London, and it has crystallized from 2023 at Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera where I have started my new independent research group. I intend to study the molecular basis of how these communication systems work, unravelling the functions of the key elements involved in the decision-making process for phages using these communication systems. The initial results of this effort have already given insights into how mechanistically these systems are regulated, supporting the feasibility and novelty of this line of research and resulting in four publications (Brady et al., 2021; Gallego del Sol et al., 2022, Brady et al., 2023 and Zamora-Caballero et al., 2024).

Overall, during my postdoctoral training (2014 -2022) I have participated in collaborative projects that resulted in a total of 13 peer reviewed papers, 6 as first author or joint first author in very prestigious journals including Science and PNAS. I have published one book chapter as a corresponding author, and 2 review articles, one of them as co-corresponding author. I have also mentored different students in their final projects: six undergraduates and one master student. I have co-supervised four PhD student Theses; two PhD students graduated in 2019, one graduated in 2021 and one graduated in 2023. They have continued their research careers, either as independent Fellows or assistant professors in their universities. Currently, I am the main supervisor of one PhD student that has started her PhD Fellowship in my research group in November 2023. I have also been invited to be a member of the committee to three Theses defences. I have presented my work in several national and international meetings with 2 oral communications as guest invited speaker and 14 posters presentations. I have participated in several research projects in Spain and UK, in one of them as researcher Co-Investigator, helping managing and leading the project. In 2018 I obtained funding from the BBSRC (Flexible Talent Mobility Award; Grant Re: BB/R506576/1; Funded value: £2.800) to participate in the EMBO Laboratory Leadership course. I have been awarded one competitive 3 year-grant from the “Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento 2022” call from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation ( Funded value: 133.125 €) which will help me towards establishing my independent research niche.