João Pinto

João Pinto, Assistant Professor, is the Director of the Medical Parasitology Unit of IHMT and leader of the Vector-Borne Diseases Group of GHTM. He holds a PhD in Genetics (University of Lisbon, 2003) and a degree in Biology (University of Lisbon, 1994). In 2017, he obtained academic aggregation in Biomedical Sciences (Parasitology) by University Nova de Lisboa. He coordinated the PhD Program in Biomedical Sciences (2015-2020) and the MSc course in Medical Parasitology (2014-2015) of IHMT. Current teaching commitments involve the coordination of two Curricular Units (Control of Parasitic Diseases; Computational Biology and Bioinformatics), lecturing at the PhD and MSc courses of IHMT and organization/lecturing of short training actions carried out overseas, particularly in endemic areas. He has (co)supervised 7 Post-Doctorate, 5 PhD and 14 MSc students.

Research interests focus on the bio-ecology, population genetics and evolution of insect vectors of disease.

Specifically: i) Determining the genetic structure and estimating gene flow among populations, and relate these with dispersal of genes of interest (e.g. insecticide resistance mutations, transmission-blocking genes); ii) analyzing the evolutionary dynamics of natural vector populations in relation to environmental changes and its epidemiological repercussions; iii) Characterizing levels and mechanisms of insecticide resistance. These studies target mainly malaria (Anopheles) and arbovirus (Aedes, Culex) mosquito vectors.

He has participated in 10 projects as Principal Investigator/Team leader (5 funded by international agencies). He has (co)authored 86 peer reviewed articles published in indexed journals and 1 book chapter (http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8572-7708).

1. 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. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eva.12834
2. The Anopheles gambiae 1000 Genomes Consortium. 2017. Genetic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. Nature 552: 96-100.https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24995
3. Moyes C.L., Vontas J., Martins A.J., Ng L.C., Koou S.Y, Dusfour I., Raghavendra K., Pinto J., Corbel V., David J.-P. & Weetman D. 2017. Contemporary status of insecticide resistance in the major Aedes vectors of arboviruses infecting humans. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 11: e0005625.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005625
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. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46451
5. Weetman D., Wilding C.S., Steen K., Pinto J. & Donnelly M.J. 2012. Gene flow-dependent genomic divergence between Anopheles gambiae M and S forms. Molecular Biology and Evolution 29: 279-291.https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msr199