Dr Amanda Fortes Francisco
BSc MSc PhD
Assistant Professor
I obtained a BSc in Nutrition and an MSc and PhD in Biological Sciences, both from the Federal University of Ouro Preto in Brazil. In 2012 I was awarded a scholarship from The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development to work on the Trypanosoma cruzi heart pathology in John Kelly' lab at LSHTM where I undertook this post-doctoral work for 2 years. In 2014 I started to work at LSHTM funded by Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi). DNDi is a non-profit research and development organization that is developing new treatments for neglected diseases. Currently, I am working with drug discovery for DNDi, GSK, Novartis and others using the bioluminescence in vivo image system for T. cruzi/T. brucei and on the pathogenesis of Chronic Chagasic Cardiomyopathy (CCC).
Affiliations
Teaching
Learning tutor on Parasitology Module IDM203, Infectious Diseases MSc.
Supervision of MSc and PhD projects.
Research
The major pathology of Chagas disease is heart damage including cardiomyopathy, cardiac inflammation and fibrosis. The use of a new non-invasive tecnology as the electrocardiogram (ECG) will complement our current experiments by providing clinical data on heart function, which can be mapped onto the bioluminescent data we have on the infection kinetics. It can also be used to look at changes in heart parameters of infected mice undergoing treatment with novel drug candidates.
Exploit in vivo imaging technology to study Chagas' disease pathogenesis and assess drug effectiveness in collaboration with DNDi, GSK, Novartis and others.
You can find more about me using the links below:
https://www.londonntd.org/research/researchers/dr-amanda-francisco
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dr_Amanda_Francisco
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3475-8130