Principal Investigator:  Carlos J. Blondel, PhD.

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Carlos is a biochemist from Universidad de Chile, same place where he obtained his PhD in 2011 working under the mentorship of Dr. Inés Contreras, studying both the regulation of LPS biosynthesis in Shigella flexneri and Salmonella enterica and the identification of Type VI Secretion Systems in Salmonella.

In 2013, he was named PEW Latin American Fellow in the Biomedical Sciences and he joined the laboratory of HHMI Investigator Dr. Matthew K. Waldor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women´s Hospital for his postdoctoral trainning. During his postdoctoral trainning under Dr. Waldor´s mentorship, he studied the molecular mechanisms that underlie the virulence of bacterial pathogens such as the pandemic Vibrio parahaemolyticus O3:K6 and Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) serotype O157:H7 and he used CRISPR/Cas9-based genetic screens to identify host factors that promote human susceptibility to the toxic action of Vibrio parahaemolyticus' two Type III Secretion Systems (T3SS).

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In 2017, he was selected as an HHMI-Gulbenkian International Research Scholar. Dr. Blondel currently investigates the emergence of human pathogens by studying their molecular weaponry and how virulence emerges from coincidental evolution due to their adaptation to the environment and their respective ecological niches.

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In 2019 he joined the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Universidad Andrés Bello (ICB-UNAB).