Fitxa persona

M.L. Gil graduated in Pharmacy at the University of Valencia (UV) in 1985. She received a PhD in 1989 for research on the identification of cell-wall proteins of Candida albicans at the Microbiology Department (UV). As a post-doctoral fellow she joined Didier Fradelizi Immunoloy laboratory at the Institute Gustave Roussy, in Paris. During the post-doctoral she graduated in Immunology at the Pasteur Institute and also participated in research that led to the identification of a new human leukocyte molecule (CD82). Back in Spain, in 1994, she was appointed as Assitant Professor, and in 1999, as Associate Professor, at the University of Valencia. In 2004 she started an independent research group that focused on the antifungal innate immunity and was promoted to Full Professor at the University of Valencia in 2011.    

Since her return to Spain, her research has focused on studying the pathogen/host interaction during candidiasis. In the first years, the research focused on the characterization of virulence factors of the fungus, then to address the study of the immune response, and specifically the participation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in the recognition of C. albicans, Since 2007, it has extended the study of the participation of TLRs in the interaction of C. albicans with the immune system, to hematopoietic stem cells, following the discovery that these cells express functional TLRs. Her main line of current research examines how the activation of PRRs in stem cells and hematopoietic progenitors, induces myeloid differentiation as well as in the implications in the phenotype of the macrophages they generate and in the protection against candidiasis; the results obtained show that the "memory" of innate immunity affects not only monocytes and macrophages but also the progenitors.