Carolina Gallo López

Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in the group of Dr. Luis Serrano. From my PhD thesis to date, I am working with a small bacterium, Mycoplasma pneumoniae. We are using this minimal cell to firstly develop a life animal vaccine against other Mycoplasma species that are pathogens of farm animals (MycoSynVac project). Secondly, we are engineering M. pneumoniae to treat human lung diseases (spin-off Pulmobiotics from the CRG).

To genetically modified this cell, we need to understand many of its internal mechanisms that allow it to grow, divide and produce and secrete proteins of interest. I was particularly studying its growth and the genetic factors that regulate and control its growth rate. I made a comparative analysis of slow- and fast-growing Mycoplasma species by using transcriptomics and proteomics data. I found that the expression levels of ribosomal proteins were much higher in fast- than in slow-growing Mycoplasmas. With all the -omics data that we have gathered from this bacterium, we have a fairly good understanding of their mechanisms that enable us to engineer it to produce, expose and secrete proteins of interest.