Gerardo Montalvo Zurbía Flores

After undertaking a MSc in Medical Virology at the University of Manchester, I completed a DPhil in Clinical Medicine at the Jenner Institute (Nuffield Department of Medicine). During the DPhil, my research focused on the development of vaccines against mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue virus, Zika virus, chikungunya virus, and yellow fever virus; particularly, working towards the development of strategies for the generation of novel multi-disease vaccines using viral vectors.

My research is primarily focused on medical virology and translational vaccinology. My current interests are the development of prophylactic Hepatitis C vaccines and universal coronavirus vaccines using viral vectors and mRNA. I employ bioinformatics and in-silico research to design ‘state-of-the-art’ vaccines, which then are tested in preclinical studies to determine their immunogenic potential. Besides the initial assessment of their immunogenicity, the research interests of the Barnes Group also include the immunological assessment of vaccine candidates in human clinical studies.