Research - Our Team

Dr. Vila is Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Head of the Clinical Microbiology Department of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona and Professor at the School of Medicine of the University of Barcelona (UB). In addition, he leads the Antibiotic Resistance Initiative at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). His main field of research is the development of new antibiotics against multi-resistant bacteria and molecular tools for the rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases.

Dr. Vila was the Director of the Congress of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) from 2009 to 2014 and member of the ICAAC Scientific Committee for 4 years. He is currently the President of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC). He has published 450 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has two patented molecules. 

Lines of research

•  Design of new antibiotics against multidrug-resistant bacteria
•  Research on the molecular bases of antimicrobial resistance
•  Development of new rapid diagnostic tools to diagnose infectious diseases

Main publications

• Zboromyrska Y, Rubio E, Alejo I, Vergara A, Mons A, Campo I, Bosch J, Marco F, Vila J. Development of a new protocol for rapid bacterial identification and susceptibility testing directly from urine samples. Clinical Microbiology and Infection (2016) 22:561.e1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cmi.2016.01.025
•  Ballesté-Delpierre C, Fernandez-Orth D, Ferrer-Navarro M, Díaz-Peña R, Odena-Caballol A, Oliveira E, Fàbrega A, Vila J. First insights into the pleiotropic role of vrf (yedF), a newly characterized gene of Salmonella Typhimurium. Scientific Reports (2017)7(1):15291. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-15369-7
•  Ferrer-Navarro M, Strehlitz A, Medina E, Vila J. Changed expression of cytoskeleton proteins during lung injury in a mouse model of Streptococcus pneumoniae infection. Frontiers in Microbiology (2018) 9: 928. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.00928.
•  van Belkum A, Bachmann TT, Luedke G, Lisby G, Kahlmeter G, Mohess A, Becker K, Hays JP, Woodford N, Mitsakakis K, Moran-Gilad J, Vila J, Peter H, Rex J, Dunne WM on behalf of the JPIAMR AMR-RDT Working Group. Developmental roadmap for antimicrobial susceptibility testing systems, Nature Reviews Microbiology (2019) 17: 51-62. doi: 10.1038/s41579-018-0098-9
•  Yuliya Zboromyrska, Catia Cillóniz, Nazaret Cobos-Trigueros, Manel Almela, Juan Carlos Hurtado, Andrea Vergara, Caterina Mata, Alex Soriano, Josep Mensa, Francesc Marco and Jordi Vila. Evaluation of the MagicplexTM Sepsis Real-Time Test for the Rapid Diagnosis of Bloodstream Infections in Adults. Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology (2019) 9: 56. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2019.00056.