Faculty of Medicine

Notable Projects

• Characterization of exosomes in pregnant and non-pregnant women with malaria-geohelminthiasis coinfection and their immunomodulatory effect in placenta and peripheral blood.
• Gestational and placental malaria in Colombia: Clinical, ecoepidemiological, and social approach.
• Prevalence and effects of co-infection with Plasmodium spp and geohelminths in pregnant women in Colombian malarial areas.
• Maternal and neonatal immunomodulation by placental plasmodial infection and maternal geohelminthiasis and its effect on the immune response to vaccine antigens.
• Gestational Plasmodium vivax infection: Immunopathogenesis, histopathology, and plasmodial genetics, and its effects on maternal, fetal and neonatal morbimortality in northwestern Colombia, 2016-2018.

Main Research Results

• The pathogenic capacity of Plasmodium vivax to generate placental malaria and congenital malaria has been established.
• Pregnancy-associated malaria, both in the mother and placenta, has been shown to affect the immune response of the mother and her neonate to expanded program on immunization vaccines.
• The histopathological profile of placental malaria has been identified in northwestern Colombia.
• The profile of immune, inflammatory, and other mediators in both maternal peripheral blood and placental tissue blood has been partially characterized.

Research Portafolio