Nuria Izquierdo-Useros is a biologist from Madrid who obtained her PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in 2009. Her research focuses on the interplay between dendritic cells and HIV-1 and includes studies of the molecular mechanisms for viral capture and endocytosis associated with an exosome pathway that is exploited by retroviruses to evade the host immune system. In 2012, she contributed to the identification of Siglec-1 as a novel dendritic cell receptor that mediates HIV-1 capture via recognition of specific gangliosides exposed on viral and exosomal membranes. She pursued post-doctoral studies — funded by the José Castillejo fellowship programme — with Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Kräusslich at Heidelberg University (Germany) and was awarded a Mathilde Krim Fellowship in Biomedical Research —funded by amfAR—. She has collaborated actively with other groups in the same field and has made several stays at foreign research centres, including Boston University School of Medicine (USA) and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (Switzerland). She has been employed as an associate researcher at IrsiCaixa since 2016, where she continues her work on antigen-presenting cells and viral pathogenesis, with a particular focus on the design of novel antiviral tools.

 Virology, Immunology, HIV, Pathogenesis.