Mauricio Comas-Garcia, Ph.D.
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Professor of Biology
Life Sciences Graduate Program
Basic Biomedical Research Graduate Program
Department of Sciences
Research Center for Health Sciences and Biomedicine
Autonomous University of San Luis PotosÃ
Curriculum Vitae
Who I am.
Prof. Mauricio Comas-GarcÃa got his B.Sc. in Chemistry (Licenciado en QuÃmica) in 2007 from the Chemistry Department at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosà (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 Univerisity of Guanajuato), the Physics Institute (UASLP), and the Chemistry ad 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 a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the Chemistry ad Biochemistry Department at UCLA under the guidance of 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 of them 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 Postdoctoral Fellow. During his almost 5-years at NCI, Dr. Comas-Garcia focused on characterizing Gag-RNA interactions, the identity of 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 PotosÃ, México, to accept a joint appointment as a Professor of Biology at the Department of Sciences and at 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 undergraduate students. 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); 36% obtained candidate level, 41% level 1, 17% level 2, and 6% level 3.
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He is an Academic Editor of the PLOS ONE Editorial Board, a member of the Reviewing Editor of eLife, Vaccines, Frontiers in Virology (Emerging and Reemerging Viruses, Antivirals and Vaccines, and Translational Virology), Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences-Cellular Biochemistry, and a member of the Topical Advisory Panel for Viruses. Also, He is an ad hoc reviewer for CONACYT, Viruses, Pathogens, Biophysical Journal, Frontiers in Immunology, 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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