Dario S. Zamboni, Ph.D.

Research

Dr. Dario Zamboni is head of the Innate Immunity and Microbial Pathogenesis laboratory at Ribeirão Preto Medical School at the University of Sao Paulo. In 1998, he started his Ph.D. in Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology at the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil. Under the supervision of Dr. Michel Rabinovitch, Dr. Zamboni studied the interaction between the intracellular bacteria Coxiella burnetii and mammalian cells. Part of his Ph.D. was performed in the laboratory of Dr. Craig Roy (Yale University, School of Medicine, USA), where Dr. Zamboni studied the functional properties of the C. burnetii type IV secretion system. In 2003, he returned to the laboratory of Dr. Craig Roy for a full post-doc (funded by a fellowship from the PEW Program in the Biomedical Sciences). At Yale, Dr. Zamboni sought to understand the innate immune recognition of Legionella pneumophila by pattern recognition receptors expressed by macrophages. In 2006, he became an independent professor at the University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, Brazil. Since then, Dr. Zamboni's group has been investigating the recognition of intracellular microbial pathogens (mainly Legionella pneumophila, Coxiella burnetii, Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma cruzi) by pattern recognition receptors and the modulation of host cell functions by these intracellular pathogens.