Staff

 

Verónica Perez-Luna

Verónica obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Sciences with Prof. Quintana-Ruiz. She is the lab technician in charge of the TEM facility. She is an expert in TEM analysis of biological and nanostructured samples.

 

​

Postdoctoral fellows

 

Ignacio Lara-Hernández

Ignacio obtained his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with Prof. Comas-Garcia. His thesis focused on understanding how the human respiratory syncytial virus modifies mitochondria using thin-section TEM and on how these alterations relate to the mechanism by which the virus escapes the immune response. Now, he is part of a CICSaB-wide project that aims to detect human pathogenic viruses in water treatment plants by molecular biology and TEM.s

​

Ph.D. Students

 

Brianda Agundis-Tinajero

Brianda obtained her Engineering degree in biomedicine from the Science Department at UASLP. She is an M.Sc. Life Science Master’s Program at the Science Department at UASLP. She is being co-tutored by Profs. Mauricio Comas-García and Aldo Mejía-Rodríguez. She is developing software based on Artificial intelligence to find and characterize damaged mitochondria in SARS-CoV-2-infected cells.

​

Verónica Arellano-Cerda

Verónica is a Ph.D. student at the DICIM (Ph.D. in Engineering in Materials Sciences). She is being co-tutored by Profs. Mauricio Comas-García and Mildred Quintana-Ruiz. She is using a material sciences approach to understand the mechanical properties of a CHIKV mutant in which we have removed interactions that induce steric repulsions between glycoproteins.

​

​

Andrea Castorena-Robles

Andrea obtained her Engineering degree in Bioprocesses from the TIEMS and her M.Sc.i n Molecular Biology at IPICyT. She is working on understanding the electrostatic interactions between CHIKV E1 and E2 that control assembly and disassembly. She is currently tutored by Prof. Comas-Garcia.

​

​​

Miguel Angel Coronado-Ipiña.

Miguel obtained his M.Sc. in Life Sciences studying some of the interactions that drive CHIKV budding. Now he is dissecting the E2-E2 interactions that control the assembly and disassembly of CHIV. He is currently tutored by Prof. Comas-Garcia.

​

​

​​​​

Arleth Miranda-Lopez

Arleth obtained her Eng. Degree in Pharmacobiology from Oaxaca University and an M.Sc. in the Pharmacobiologics Graduate Program at the UASLP medical school. Her thesis dissertation focuses on producing a mucosal vaccine against ZIKV. She is being co-tutored by Profs. Mauricio Comas-Garcia and Sergio Rosales-Mendoza. She should graduate by February 2026.

​

​

C. Lorena Rodriguez-Salazar

Lorena obtained his B.Sc. in Biology from the Science Department at UASLP and her M.Sc. at the IPICYT. Her Ph.D. work focuses on understanding how the nuclei of turtle red blood cell morphology correlate with their health and the levels of contamination in their habitats (co-PI Prof. Vanessa Labrada-Martaón). She should be graduating by the end of 2025.

​

​

M.Sc. Students

​

Libertad M. Nieto-Espinosa

Libertad obtained his B.Sc. in Biology at the Science  Department at UASLP. She is currently an M.Sc. student in the Basic Biomedical Research Program. Her thesis project focuses on determining whether CHIKV mutants with reduced infectivity and abnormal virions elicit a less inflammatory response than the attenuated CHIKV 181/25 strain. She is studying the immunological properties of these mutants using PBMCs. This project is a collaboration with immunologists Prof. Adriana Monsivaís-Urenda and Dr. Elena Martínez-Shio.

 

 

Oscar U. Ulloa-Medina

Oscar obtained his B.Sc. in Chemical Pharmacology from the  Chemistry  Department at UASLP. He is currently an M.Sc. student in the Basic Biomedical Research Program. His thesis project focuses on developing a molecular biology-based epidemiological program to detect respiratory viruses in San Luis Potosi's sewer system. He should graduate before the end of 2025.

​​

 

Undergraduate Students

​​​

Leslie P. Lugo-Herrejón

Leslie is a senior Biology student in the Science Department at UASLP. She is currently generating a one-plasmid system that generates two independent RNA: an mRNA for CHIKV's structural proteins, and CHIKV's replicon RNA.

​

​

Edgar Mota-Medina

Edgar is a senior Biology student in the Science Department at UASLP. He is currently trying to understand how the mutations of CHIKV CP affect the fidelity of the virion assembly process.

​​​

​​

​

W. Carolina Piña-Ruiz

Carolina is a junior Biology student in the Science Department at UASLP. She is currently performing a bioinformatic analysis of the capsid protein of alphaviruses and site-directed mutagenesis to understand the assembly of alphavirus cores.

​​

​

Italia V. Rivera-Martínez

ITalia is a freshman Biology student in the Science Department at UASLP. She is currently generating a rescue mutant of CHIKV that could alleviate some budding defects on a mutant with altered E2-E2 interactions.

​

​​

​

Diana Andrea Zuñiga-Izaguirre

Edgar is a senior Bioprocesses Engineering student in the Chemical Science Department at UASLP. She is currently trying to understand how the mutations of CHIKV CP affect the fidelity of the virion assembly process.

​

​

​

​

​