Research

My research focuses on the complex interactions between viruses, either with other viruses, their hosts, or the environment, and how these interactions impact viral behavior, evolution and ecology.

Virus sociality ecology and evolution

Cooperation is a main driver of biological complexity at all levels. In the viral world, gene sharing among viral genomes, complementation between genomes or interactions within coinfections are frequently observed. Besides, viruses are main vehicles of horizontal gene transfer acting as pools of gene diversity, and function. I’m interested in exploring and quantifying the effects of the interaction between viruses as a viral strategy to succeed.

Virus-satellite interactions

Viruses can interact with other genetic parasites called satellites. Satellites are ubiquitous superparasitic entities that rely on a specific helper virus for their replication, encapsidation, and/or propagation to other hosts. While the satellite’s dependence on the helper virus is essential for its own presistance, the association is in principle incidental if not detrimental for the helper virus. Why virus-satellite associations are so pervasive, even if contingent, must involve evolutionary payoffs. For example, we have shown that virus-satellite associations can promote viral coexistance in the long run, which differs from other mechanisms proposed in ecology to date to enhance species coexistence.

Virus-to-virus communication

Communication between organisms enables populations to respond cooperatively. On a micro-scale, these cooperative responses serve as the foundation for collective decision-making, with prominent examples in single-celled eukaryotes, bacteria, and more recently discovered in virus-infecting bacteria (so-called phage). Communication between phage reacts to infection overcrowding through a lysis-lysogeny decision switch. Switches between lysis (virulent) and lysogeny (dormant) pathways, allow phage to protect host populations from depletion through a temperate strategy, while simultaneously replicating alongside the bacterial chromosome as a prophage. Temperate phages role in microbial ecology, expands beyond just impacting bacterial population sizes, but they actively shepherd microbial ecosystems by influencing bacterial behavior, pathogenicity, and evolution.

Multipartite viruses

Multipartitism is a strange lifestyle found in viruses. The genomes of these viruses are formed by segments enclosed in different capsids that are transmitted independently. For the virus to complete its lifecycle, all segments must come together in the same cell. Whereas multipartitism creates a clear disadvantage as the virus fights the struggle of genomic loss, it’s power lies in its dynamic and opportunistic nature as it enables immediate adaptive responses to environmental changes. The reasons for its success should be shought in multipartitism itself as an adaptive mechanism, to which its evolutionarily short-lived products (that is, the extant ensemble of multipartite viral species) are subordinated.

Virus-host coevolution

Viral interactions with microbial hosts modulate the structure and function of microbial communities. These interactions can evolve rapidly even on short, experimental timescales, driving widespread changes in the composition of coevolving microbial and viral communities. To understand virus-microbe dynamics, it is necessary to examine microbe-microbe interactions. Nonlinear interactions between individual microbes, especially in complex and diverse communities, can generate unexpected emergent phenomena that are not apparent when studying the system at the individual scale.

Infectious Disease Dynamics

My research focuses on transmission dynamics through a combination of theoretical and empirical approaches. Specifically, I investigate the transmission of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities and nursing homes.

back