Concha Gil

Concha Gil is Professor of Microbiology and Director of the Proteomics Unit of UCM. She teaches Clinical Microbiology in the Pharmacy degree and Proteomics in different Masters. She has great research experience in the yeast field, especially in Candida albicans and in proteomics. Her interest in Proteomics began when she was participating in the Eurofun project studying cell wall proteins. She started to use proteomic approaches, being one of the pioneers in Spain of this technology. She prompted the creation of the UCM Proteomic Unit establishing numerous national and international collaborations. This Unit belonged to ProteoRed (a network of Spanish proteomics facilities, 2005-2020) and offers services to many researchers. Concerning the yeast field, she has carried out many studies on C. albicans cell wall searching for new targets for the development of new antifungal drugs. In particular, her group studied in depth a GPI anchor protein, Ecm33p, required for cell wall integrity and virulence. Her group was one of the first to identify moonlighting proteins on the yeast cell surface, a discovery difficult to accept at the time and currently has much interest in the interaction of microorganisms with the host. Some of these proteins can be secreted through extracellular vesicles (EVs). Currently, her line of research is focused on the C. albicans- host interaction study and on the development of new strategies for the diagnosis of infectious diseases using invasive candidiasis as a model. Pathogen and host responses are evaluated at different molecular and particularly proteomic approaches such as shotgun, quantitative and targeted proteomics. These studies shed light into the different virulence factors of Candida and the host response. Some of these investigations had unveiled the apoptosis of C. albicans inside the macrophages that was compared with other apoptotic inducers. These works are allowing to the study of the function of some unknown proteins. Global proteomic and phosphoproteomic analysis under oxidative stress are allowing us to get more knowledge of the C. albicans mechanisms of evasion and regulated cell death. In addition, the role of Candida EVs in the biology and virulence of this yeast is currently studied by her group. Concerning the diagnosis of invasive candidiasis, her group has identified different biomarkers of diagnosis and prognosis using immunoproteomics and machine learning, some of them had been validated. Currently they are carrying out a study with 12 antigens using Luminex with sera from patients with invasive candidiasis. Recently her group together the Proteomics Unit have set up the metaproteomics analysis of the gut microbiota and they are carrying out different collaborations. In addition, her group is involved in the Human proteome project (HPP). She is coordinating the “HPP- Human infectious Diseases” initiative with the goal to prompt inter-collaboration among international researchers. Currently C. Gil belongs to the HUPO Council (Human Proteome Organization) (2018-).