Maria Casadellà Fontdevila obtained a degree in Biology from the University of Barcelona (UB) in 2010, which she followed up with an MSc in Biomedical Research awarded by Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in 2011. While still a master’s student she joined IrsiCaixa and, in her first year there, completed a second MSc in AIDS Pathogenesis and Treatment, awarded by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in 2012. She obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine from Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2016, in the area of HIV drug resistance mutations and viral tropism analysed by next-generation sequencing techniques. She is currently continuing her research in HIV resistance epidemiology. Her research also includes the influence of gut microbiome on the pathogenesis of HIV infection and chronic inflammation and its underlying biological mechanisms. Within the Mistral project, she is involved in evaluating the impact of the gut microbiota on the cellular immune response to vaccination and, in reverse, to assess the effects of vaccination on the gut microbiota composition, using a mouse vaccination model. She is also involved in analysing the ability of a specific synbiotic product to reduce systemic inflammation, improve immune reconstitution and change the gut microbial richness, composition and function in chronically HIV-1-infected subjects with <500 cells/mm³. In particular, she will analyse patients’ inflammation and bacterial translocation markers.