Mrs. Angélica M. Olmo Fontánez

Mrs. Olmo-Fontánez received her M.Sc. degree in Biology/Microbial Ecology from the University of Puerto Rico (Mayagüez). She joined Texas BioMed in 2017 as Research Associate, where she started her research on how age-associated changes in the human lung mucosa influence M. tuberculosis pathogenesis. Additionally, she managed the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process for the lab and was an institutional BSL-3 trainer and laboratory biorepository manager. By 2019, she decided to pursue her Ph.D. studies in the Integrated Biomedical Sciences (IBMS) Ph.D. program at UT Health San Antonio under the mentorship of Dr. Torrelles. Currently, her research interest is to elucidate the adverse impact of mitochondria-induced oxidative stress in molecular and cellular determinants in the aging lung, driving susceptibility to M. tuberculosis infection. For her ultimate goals, she will focus her research on investigating aging and aging-related susceptibilities to pathologies and infectious diseases with direct implications for human health.