Rate My Professor Joana Sa Pessoa

Dr Joana Sa Pessoa, affiliated with Queen's University Belfast's School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences and the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, is a leading researcher in bacterial infection biology. Holding a PhD in Molecular Biology, her doctoral research characterized the structure-function relationships of carboxylate transporters in model organisms such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli, and Aspergillus nidulans, identifying critical residues essential for transporter function through integrated biochemical, functional, and biophysical analyses. Since joining Queen's University Belfast in March 2014 as a postdoctoral research fellow under Professor José A. Bengoechea, she has focused on the mechanisms employed by Gram-negative bacteria, particularly Klebsiella pneumoniae, to evade and subvert host innate immune responses. Her work has elucidated sophisticated anti-immunology strategies, including the pathogen's ability to reduce host SUMOylation to impair defense responses, hijack the Toll-IL-1R protein SARM1 in a type I IFN-dependent manner, and deploy type VI secretion system effectors like VgrG4 to induce mitochondrial fragmentation and activate NLRX1 for infection promotion. Sa Pessoa served as Researcher Co-Investigator on a BBSRC-funded project exploring how K. pneumoniae exploits eukaryotic-like effector proteins to antagonize host defenses.