BIOGRAPHY
Dr Amable J. Rivas Fontenla graduated in Molecular Biology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in 2006. He completed his PhD at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2012. His scientific work focused on finding iron uptake and hemolysin systems in bacterial fish pathogens. The aim was to genetically characterize siderophores and hemolysins gene clusters and investigate the role they play in virulence. He received a price in excellence due to scientific findings. From 2014 to 2017, he continued his studies as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz (Germany) supported by a scholarship from the Galician government (Xunta de Galicia, Spain). He joined Prof. Dr Matthias Husmann group to characterize the hemolysins produced by Photobacterium damselae subsp. damselae, a fish and human bacterial pathogen. Efforts focused on unravelling the cellular responses to these bacterial pore-forming toxins (PFT). His scientific findings led to the publication of articles where a new toxin (phobalysin), a new siderophore (piscibactin) and two new plasmids (pHDP70 and pPHDD1) are described. Since April 2017, He works as a project leader in an R&D department in the company Vaxxinova. His tasks are focused on developing new vaccines against pathogens affecting livestock animals.
RESEARCH INTEREST
His research Interest mainly on how pathogenic bacteria induce disease in the host. The contribution of iron uptake systems and pore-forming toxins to virulence. Also Bacterial secretome, and Adhesion.
