ISGlobal
Gemma Moncunill is an Assistant Research Professor in the Malaria Immunology group at ISGlobal (Barcelona, Spain), where she works on determinants and mechanisms of vaccine responses and immunity to malaria and other infectious diseases, particularly in susceptible populations (children and pregnant women).
Her research career started in 2004 at IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, where she received a PhD degree in Immunology in 2009 (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), working on new anti-HIV agents. Afterward, she moved to ISGlobal (Barcelona Institute for Global Health), where she worked as a postdoctoral fellow on malaria immunology (2009-2013) and performed studies at FM-CISM (Mozambique). She developed and applied multiparametric immune assays and machine learning methods to identify biomarkers and cellular responses associated with vaccination and protection. Later, she moved to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (USA, 2013-2014) where she worked on cellular immune responses to vaccines and become an expert on flow cytometry.
In 2017 she returned to ISGlobal, with the goal to identify correlates of malaria protection and decode the immune responses that determine infection and vaccine outcomes to inform vaccine design, increase vaccine efficacy and identify new strategies to induce protection. Lately, she has started using systems immunology approaches to gain molecular insights into the mechanisms of vaccines and malaria immunity.