Alberto Falco

Alberto Falco

E-mail: Alberto Falco

Publications (word file)

Alberto Falco’ obtained his PhD (2004-2008, cum laude) in Molecular and Cell Biology in the Molecular and Cellular Institute from the ‘Miguel Hernández’ University of Elche, Spain. The subject of his PhD was: ‘Antiviral activity and immunomodulatory effect of defensins in fish using the VHSV/rainbow trout model’ respectively. In 2008 he worked in a Spanish biotechnology company on the design of immunoliposomes against cancer cells (breast cancer) and virus (Viral Haemorrhagic Septicaemia Virus, VHSV). On October 2008 returned to the “Miguel Hernández” University of Elche to work as a post-doc in the project “Improvement of the aquaculture production using biotechnological tools”.

From August 2009 to August 2011, he worked as post-doc as part of a large integrated International Training Network (ITN) at Keele University, United Kingdom. The main target of his research was to unravel how beta-glucans affect the innate immune response of fish and how they can be potentially used as immuno-stimulants to improve the health of cultured fish.

In December 2011 he joined the Fish health and Immunology unit after obtaining a personal Marie Curie fellowship for experienced researchers. He will work with Dr. Geert Wiegertjes and Dr. Maria Forlenza and his research will focus on the identification of several members of a large family of type-I-like interferons (IFNf) in carp and on the evaluation of their potential use as molecular adjuvants during DNA vaccination of carp against spring viraemia of carp virus. His main activities will deal with molecular cloning, gene expression analysis as well as protein expression in bacterial and eukaryotic systems followed by in vivo and in vitro functional analysis.