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Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine

ISSN: 1179-7282


Dr Mario Rodriguez-Perez

Dr Rodriguez-Perez

Center for Biotechnology and Genomics (CBG), National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), Reynosa, Mexico

Dr. Rodriguez-Perez studied his B.Sc. (Biology) and M.Sc. (Medical Entomology) at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, Mexico (1984-1990), his PhD (Biological Sciences) at the University of Salford Manchester, England, U.K. (1995-9), completed his Postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Riverside, U.S.A. (2004), Center for Biological Research & Nacional Unit for Proteomics (Nacional Center for Biotechnology, CSIC), and National Center for Microbiology (Carlos III Public Health Institute), Madrid, Spain (2007-8, 2015-6, respectively). He is currently the Director, Head of a Research Laboratory, and Full Professor at the Center for Biotechnology and Genomics (CBG), National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). He is also a National (Mexico) Investigator Level III (effective from 2016-20) at the Mexican National System for Research (CONACyT). He has been a consulting-collaborator for Entomology/Epidemiology, since 1995, of the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas (OEPA: The Carter Center/ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/ Merck Sharp & Dohme/ Lions Club International); and, since 2002, he has been a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

His lab initiated work on onchocerciasis in 1990, performing studies on entomology and epidemiology of onchocerciasis, where they evaluated the ivermectin program since its beginning to the time it was suspended, given that they could demonstrate that the parasite transmission had been interrupted. They continued investigating onchocerciasis until they demonstrated that transmission had not resumed in the three foci of Mexico during the three years since the last distribution of ivermectin occurred; it was concluded that transmission remained undetectable without intervention, and Onchocerca volvulus has been eliminated from Mexico. Several peer-reviewed articles on surveillance and elimination of onchocerciasis resulted from those studies.

He has contributed new knowledge on black fly vectors of onchocerciasis for their surveillance and control. A Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant was awarded to Dr. Rodriguez-Perez to develop novel black fly traps for these purposes. He is especially interested in infectious diseases transmitted by arthropod vectors, and has also investigated the epidemiology of other vector borne diseases such as Zika, and Chikungunya. He has been studying mosquito-borne virus ecology and transmission for over 15 years. For dengue and other mosquito vectors, his work has used multidisciplinary approaches to studying these complex diseases, including bioinformatics, molecular biology, vector ecology/biology, and DNA barcoding of vectors. An ongoing line of research of his lab is on biological control of vectors. He has investigated and developed novel methods for biological control of dengue vectors using entomopathogenic fungus.


Editorial Board

Munir Aktas, Professor, Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Firat, Elazig, Turkey

Beena Antony, Professor, Microbiology Department, Fr. Muller Medical College, Mangalore, Karnataka, India

Ravindra Kumar Garg, Department of Neurology, King George Medical University, Uttar Pradesh Lucknow-226003 India

Jann Hau, Professor in Comparative Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Jing Liu, Professor, Leader and Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Bayi Children's Hospital, Vice President of Bayi Children's Hospital Affiliated to the Army General Hospital of the Chinese PLA. Beijing, People's Republic of China.

Dr. Preeti Shanbag, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, ESI-PGIMSR & Model Hospital, Andheri, Mumbai, India.

Ashraf Tawfik Mohamed Soliman, Professor, Consultant Pediatric Endocrinologist, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar, Department of Pediatrics, University of Alexandria, Egypt

Alimuddin Zumla, Professor of Infectious Diseases and International Health, Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London, London; Consultant Infectious Diseases Physician, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust London, United Kingdom