João Pinto

João Pinto is Associate Professor at the Medical Parasitology Unit of IHMT/UNL. He got a degree in Biology (1994) and a PhD in Genetics (2003), both from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. His PhD studies focused on the genetics malaria vectors in islands and detection of population changes associated with vector control. After the PhD, he held a post-doc fellowship shared between the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and IHMT to work on the genetics of insecticide resistance. Since 2021, he is based in São Tomé and Príncipe acting as field science manager for the University of California Malaria Initiative (stopmalaria.org). He has supervised/co-supervised 8 postdocs, 10 PhD students and 16 MSc students. He has published 108 scientific papers and two book chapters (h-index = 32).

My primary research interest focuses on the genetics and evolutionary biology of insect vectors of disease. I develop studies aimed at characterizing patterns of population structure and gene flow and how these affect the distribution of genes of interest (e.g. insecticide resistance genes), the evolution of traits of medical importance and responsiveness to vector control measures. Major target organisms are mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles, Culex and Aedes, responsible for the transmission of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and arboviral infections.

1. da Moura A.J.F., Valadas V., Leal S.V., Sabino E.M., Sousa C.A. & Pinto J. (2023). Screening of natural Wolbachia infection in mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) from Cape Verde Islands. Parasites & Vectors 16: 142.
2. Campos M., Hanemaaijer M., Gripkey H., Collier T.C., Lee Y., Cornel A.J. Pinto J., Ayala D., Rompão H. & Lanzaro G.C. (2021). The origin of island populations of the African malaria mosquito, Anopheles coluzzii. Communications in Biology 4: 630.
3. Salgueiro P., Serrano C., Gomes B., Alves J., Sousa C.A., Abecasis A. & Pinto J. (2019). Phylogeography and invasion history of Aedes aegypti, the Dengue and Zika mosquito vector in Cape Verde islands (West Africa). Evolutionary Applications 12: 1797-1811.
4. Vicente J.L., Clarkson C.S., Caputo B., Gomes B., Pombi M., Sousa C.A., Antao T., Dinis J., Bottà G., Mancini E., Petrarca V., Mead D., Drury E., Stalker J., Miles A., Kwiatkowski D.P., Donnelly M.J., Rodrigues A., della Torre A., Weetman D. & Pinto J. (2017). Massive introgression drives species radiation at the range limit of Anopheles gambiae. Scientific Reports 7: 46451.
5. The Anopheles gambiae 1000 Genomes Consortium [Miles A., Harding N.J., Botta G., Clarkson C., Antao T., Kozak K., Schrider D., Kern A., Redmond S., Sharakhov I., Pearson R., Bergey C., Fontaine M., Troco A., Diabate A., Costantini C., Rohatgi K., Elissa N., Coulibaly B., Dinis J., Midega J., Mbogo C., Mawejje H., Stalker J., Rockett K., Drury E., Mead D., Jeffreys A., Hubbart C., Rowlands K., Isaacs A., Jyothi D., Malangone C., Vauterin P., Jeffrey B., Wright I., Hart L., Kluczynski K., Cornelius V., MacInnis B., Henrichs C., Giacomantonio R., Ayala D., Bejon P., Besansky N., Burt A., Caputo B., della Torre A., Godfray C., Hahn M., Neafsey D., O’Loughlin S., Pinto J., Riehle M., Vernick K., Weetman D., Wilding C., White B., Lawniczak M., Donnelly M. & Kwiatkowski D.] (2017). Genetic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. Nature 552: 96-100.