Prof. Mauricio Comas-García got his B.Sc. in Chemistry (Licenciado en Química) in 2007 from the Chemistry Department at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (UASLP). He received the 2003, 2004, and 2005 Academic Excellence in Chemistry Awards from the UASLP. He graduated with the highest G.P.A. of the 2007 Class in Chemistry. As an undergraduate student, he did research internships at the Physics Institute (Autonomous University of Guanajuato), the Physics Institute (UASLP), and the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at UCLA. His undergraduate thesis focused on understanding the physical-chemical behavior of cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) virions at the air/water interphase.

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In 2007, he was awarded a CONACYT Ph.D. fellowship and a UCLA First-Year Fellowship to study for a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at UCLA under Professors William M. Gelbart and Charles M. Knobler. The main focus of his Ph.D. thesis was to understand the physical interactions that control nucleocapsid assembly of CCMV capsid protein and the rules that determine how single-stranded RNA is packaged during nucleocapsid assembly. He received numerous awards: the 2009 Assistant Teaching Award, the 2012 George Gregory Award for excellence in physical-chemical research, the UCLA 2012 Dissertation Year Fellowship, and an Award for the Best Doctoral Dissertation on Physical Chemistry (2013), all at UCLA.

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In 2013, he joined Dr. Alan Rein´s group at the HIV Dynamics and Replication Program at the National Cancer Institute-Frederick in Maryland as a Postdoctoral Fellow. During his almost five years at NCI, Dr. Comas-Garcia focused on characterizing Gag-RNA interactions, the identity of the HIV-1 packaging signal, and the molecular mechanism by which this packaging signal allows selective packaging of HIV-1 genomic RNA during virion assembly.

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In January 2018, he returned to San Luis Potosí, México, to accept a joint appointment as a Professor of Biology at the Department of Sciences and the Research Center for Health Sciences and Biomedicine (CICSaB) at UASLP. He is the head of the Biology Systems Laboratory of the High-Resolution Microscopy Section and of the Viral Assembly laboratory (associated laboratory of the Molecular and Translational Medicine and Biotechnology sections). Now, he has established a young and productive research group that focuses on basic and translational science.

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He is a professor in the Graduate Research programs in Basic Biomedical Research (Medical School) and at Life Sciences (Science Department), and an associate professor in the Graduate Research programs in Bioprocesses (Chemistry Department), Pharmacological Sciences (Chemistry Department), and Engineering and Science Materials (UASLP-wide Ph.D. program). He has graduated three Ph.D. students,  four M.Sc. students, and six undergraduates. He is a member of the Mexican National Researcher System (SNII) Level 2 (2nd highest of the four levels). In 2023, the results from the SNII applications (open every five years) were as follows: 36% achieved candidate level, 41% achieved level 1, 17% achieved level 2, and 6% achieved level 3.

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He is an Academic Editor of the PLOS ONE Editorial Board, a Reviewing Editor of eLife and Vaccines, a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Virology, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of  Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, and the Topical Advisory Panel for Viruses. He is also a member of the 2024-SNII evaluation committee and an ad hoc reviewer for several journals, including SEHICIT (CONAHCYT), Viruses, PLOS Pathogens, Biophysical Journal, Heliyon, Archives of Virology, Biomolecules, Pharmaceutical, PLOS Computational, MP, and others.

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Prof. Comas-Garcia has been a special editor for Vaccines  (Recombinant Vaccines Produced in Emerging Expression Systems for Human and Animal Health), Frontiers (Virus-like Particles in Biomedical Applications: Recent Advances and Future Prospects; Cellular, Molecular and Immunological Aspects in Arbovirus Infection; Applied Virology and Biotechnology). He has co-edited the book "Biomedical Innovations to fight COVID-19" by Academic Press and "Physical Virology: from the State-of-the-art  Research to the Future of Applied  Virology" by Springer-Nature.

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