Biography
Dr Maria Duque-Correa completed her studies of Biology at the University of Antioquia in Colombia, where her undergraduate thesis focused on the role of macrophage activation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis control. She then went to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, USA to work as a research associate in projects investigating the effect of age on macrophage and dendritic cell responses during cancer. Afterwards, Dr Duque-Correa undertook a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany. Her PhD thesis studied the role of macrophage arginase in granuloma immunopathology during M. tuberculosis infection.
For her postdoctoral studies, Maria joined the Wellcome Sanger Institute where she investigated host-parasite interactions that drive immune responses to whipworms (Trichuris sp). During her postdoc, Maria was funded first by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship and then, by a transition to independence David Sainsbury Fellowship from the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research. Awarded a Wellcome Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, Maria started her own research group at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease at the University of Cambridge in January 2022. Her present research focuses in understanding the host-pathogen interactions that underpin whipworm invasion, colonisation and persistence at the host intestinal epithelia.
Research interests
My research interests include infectious diseases, host-pathogen interaction and immunology. These interests led me to study tuberculosis, Chagas disease and trichuriasis. Trichuriasis is a major neglected tropical disease, affecting 500 million people worldwide, and caused by infection with whipworms. Whipworms are large parasites that live inside the gut lining. Whipworms remain in their host for years by interacting with the gut lining and surrounding cells to manipulate gut structure and immune responses. How the parasite mediates these interactions is not understood. I aim to determine how whipworms invade, colonise and persist in the gut. Using a new model I developed based on “mini-guts”, the first to mimic whipworm infections in a lab dish, together with microscopy and sequencing, I am characterising: 1) the molecular and cellular changes that happen in the whipworm and the gut lining and surrounding cells when the parasite enters and colonises the gut and; 2) the interactions that allow the parasite to persist and the gut lining to repair during chronic infections. This knowledge will open new avenues to eradicate whipworm infections and control gut inflammatory diseases.
