Our Team

Sara Soto obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Oviedo and her PhD degree from the same university, under the supervision of Prof M.C. Mendoza, and with a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education. Her research was awarded an “Extraordinary Doctorate Award” for the high quality of her Doctoral Thesis (11 articles, 77 citations).

After a Postdoctoral Short-Fellowship in the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), Berlin, Germany, she obtained a 3-year postdoctoral grant from the Spanish Ministry of Health and returned to Spain to Prof Jordi Vila's laboratory. In 2005, she obtained a prestigious 6-year research contract (Miguel Servet CP05/00140) from the Spanish Ministry of Health that allowed her to establish herself as an independent researcher.

Currently, she is Head of the Global Viral and Bacterial Infections Programme and Associate Research Professor at ISGlobal, and Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona. She has published by more than 79 publications in scientific journals, 86 communications to congresses, 35 research projects (14 as Principal Investigator) and 4 contracts with private companies. She has coordinated the European H2020 project NOMORFILM (Grant. 634588), and ISCIII-national projects directed to find new molecules from natural or synthetic origin with antibacterial and antibiofilm activities (generating three patents).

Nowadays, she leads a research group focused on the transmission of antimicrobial resistance and genes associated with this resistance in a One-Health vision, search of new antibiotics and targets, and bacterial virulence and its relationship with antimicrobial resistance. Director of 6 PhD Thesis and 17 Master Thesis.

Lines of research

• Discovery of new antibiotics.
•  Development of new strategies and molecules to combat biofilms.
•  Antimicrobial resistance and the relationship between resistance and virulence.

Main publications

• Ratia C, Ballén V, Gabasa Y, Soengas RG, Velasco-de Andrés M, Iglesias MJ, Cheng Q, Lozano F, Arnér ESJ, López-Ortiz F and Soto SM. 2023. Novel gold(III)-dithiocarbamate complex targeting bacterial thioredoxin reductase: antimicrobial activity, synergy, toxicity, and mechanistic insights. Front. Microbiol. 14:1198473. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1198473
• Virginio Cepas, Ignacio Gutiérrez-Del-Río, Yuly López, Saúl Redondo, Yaiza Gabasa, María José Iglesias, Raquel G. Soengas, Claudio J. Villar, Andrés Fernández-Lorenzo, Sara López-Ibáñez, Clara B. Martins, Joana D. Ferreira, Mariana Assunçao, Lília M. A. Santos, Joao Morais, Raquel Branco, Mariana Reis, Vitor Vasconcelos, Fernando López-Ortiz, Felipe Lombó, Sara María Soto. 2021. Microalgae and cyanobacteria strains as producers of lipids with 
• antibacterial and antibiofilm activity. Marine Drugs 9(12):675. doi: 10.3390/md19120675.
• Gutiérrez-del-Río, Ignacio; Brugerolle de Fraissinette, Nelly; Castelo Branco, Raquel; Oliveira, Flavio; Morais, Joao; Redondo-Blanco, Saúl ; Villar, Claudio ; Iglesias, María José; Soengas, Raquel; Cepas, Virginio; Cubillos, Yuly; Sampietro, Giacomo ; Rodolfi, Liliana; Lombó, Felipe; Soto, Sara; López Ortiz, Fernando; Vasconcelos, Vitor; Reis, Mariana. 2020. Chlorosphaerolactylates A-D: Natural Lactylates of Chlorinated Fatty Acids Isolated from the Cyanobacterium Sphaerospermopsis sp. LEGE 00249. J. Nat Products 83(6):1885-1890. doi: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.0c00072. 
• Cepas, V., López, Y., Gabasa, Y., Martins, C.B., Ferreira, J.D., Correia, M.J., Santos, L.M.A., Oliveira, F., Ramos, V., Reis, M., Castelo-Branco, R., Morais, J., Vasconcelos, V., Probert, I, Guilloud, E., Mehiri, M., Soto, S.M. 2019. Inhibition of bacterial and fungal biofilm formation by 675 extracts from microalgae and cyanobacteria. MDPI-Antibiotics. 8: 77.