Jorge Pedrosa, born in 1964, holds a degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences. Jorge Pedrosa is a Full Professor at the School of Medicine (EM) - University of Minho (UM) and a Principal Investigator at the Inflammasignal team at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS) - UM. His research interests are in the field of Health Sciences-Immunology and he is particularly interested in the host immune response against infections by highly virulent mycobacteria, namely Mycobacterium ulcerans, the causative agent of the emergent tropical disease Buruli ulcer, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. He is using animal models in Biosafety Level 3 laboratories and collaborating with a network of health care institutions in Portugal and in Benin, to both evaluate new strategies aiming at the modulation of the host immune response (e.g. design of new vaccines) and to develop new systems of specific delivery of antimicrobial agents to infected cells. Jorge Pedrosa has published 77 peer-reviewed research articles, with an h-index of 33 and that have been cited more than 3000 times. He has supervised 11 PhD-Students and 3 MSc. His main Research Contributions include: - First demonstration of a protective role played by neutrophils in the early phase of experimental tuberculosis. - First isolation from the environment of a pure culture of M. ulcerans, the causative agent of the emergent infectious disease Buruli ulcer, implicating the involvement of aquatic insects in the transmission of this neglected disease. - Characterization of the host inflammatory response to M. ulcerans; - First description of an intracellular growth phase for M. ulcerans, as well as of the mechanisms of macrophage-mediated immune control for this pathogen.