Researcher Elisa López Varela Awarded RESPIRE4 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship by European Respiratory Society

ISGlobal researcher Elisa López Varela has been awarded one of four RESPIRE4 Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships by the European Respiratory Society (ERS) under the second call of the programme. This grant will allow the paediatrician to spend two years studying how to improve the management of infectious respiratory diseases in children, with a focus on using biomarkers to predict the risk of mortality and possible long-term respiratory sequelae.

The Respiratory Science Promoted by International Research Exchanges 4 (RESPIRE4) fellowship programme provides a platform for early-career researchers to develop their skills in an international setting and supports them in their journey to become future leaders in respiratory research. The fellowships receive funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Elisa López Varela has more than 10 years of experience coordinating and leading research projects on paediatric tuberculosis and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, half of them based in Mozambique and South Africa. In these projects, she has combined paediatric clinical care with research activities. She joined ISGlobal in 2012 and currently serves as principal investigator on several studies. She is a co-principal investigator on ANTICOV, the largest clinical trial in Africa testing treatments for mild cases of COVID-19.

“It is clear that institutions as important as the ERS—the world’s largest respiratory medicine society—are committed to funding research in paediatrics, particularly with a focus on the countries where it is most needed and can have the greatest impact,” commented López Varela. “This fellowship underscores the role of this sort of research as a driver of innovation and development in low-income countries.”

“As a researcher,” López Varela added, “it is an honour to be awarded this fellowship, which bears the name of Marie (Skłodowska) Curie, one of history’s most exemplary and inspiring scientists. I am grateful to the European Respiratory Society for supporting this group of researchers, of which I am already a member and to which I will devote all my hard work, enthusiasm and professionalism.”

This is not the first grant awarded to López Varela. In 2005, she completed a Master of Public Health at Harvard University with a grant from ”la Caixa”. In 2016, she earned her PhD from the University of Barcelona with a Río Hortega grant from the Carlos III Health Institute. Her thesis on childhood tuberculosis received the University of Barcelona’s Extraordinary Doctorate Award in 2019. Between 2018 and 2020, thanks to a grant from the Ramón Areces Foundation and the Spanish Paediatric Society, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Desmond Tutu TB Centre at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town (South Africa), where she studied the optimisation of paediatric tuberculosis treatment.

Her main area of interest is the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis and HIV in children, in particular the evaluation of novel diagnostic strategies focused on sub-Saharan African settings.

Thanks to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship, López Varela intends to study biomarkers that will allow clinicians to stratify the risk of mortality and long-term sequelae in children with respiratory infections to ensure that children survive and thrive.