Sara Moran de Bustos

Sara studied at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) where she graduated in Biological Sciences, specialising in Health Biology. She worked on her Final Degree Project at the Instituto Nacional de Salud Carlos III (Madrid, Spain) where she studied the ecotoxicological effects of phytosanitary products on Daphnia magna. 

She also studied a Master's Degree in Translational Medicine at the UCM, where she carried out her Master's Final Project at the Hospital 12 de Octubre, in the “Lamina A/C immune system research group, where she studied the possible role of Lamina A/C as a therapeutic and diagnostic target in inflammatory bowel disease. 

In October 2024 she obtained a 4-year research contract granted by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spain) for the training of research personnel. Thanks to this contract she joined the "Animal and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases" group, led by Dr. Sánchez-Cordón at the BSL-3 facility of the Animal Health Research Centre(CISA, Spain), where she is currently carrying out her PhD focused on characterizing the pathogenic mechanisms and immune response caused by Rift Valley Fever Virus in small ruminant models. She is currently on a six-month visit at The Pirbright Institute in the Transmission Biology group, supervised by Dr. Eva Perez-Martin. Her research focuses on studying the susceptibility of different foot-and-mouth- disease  virus (FMDV) isolated from African buffalo,  to Type I, II, and III interferons, as well as developing a new high-throughput in vitro antiviral assay using live-cell imaging.