Dr. Mariana Baz is a Senior Research Scientist and Head of the of the Antiviral Drug Sensitivity division at the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza at the Doherty Institute, Melbourne, Australia. She also holds an Adjunct Professor position at Université Laval, Quebec, Canada and she is the Associate Director of the BSL3 laboratory at the Infectious Disease Research Center (CRCHU de Quebec-Université Laval).
Baz is a virologist with over 15 years of experience in pathogenesis, transmission, antiviral therapies and vaccine development for respiratory viruses. She was trained in Uruguay (Bachelor in Biochemistry), Canada (Master and Ph.D.) and the USA (Postdoctoral Fellow).
Her labs (Australian and Canadian), are focusing on new therapies for respiratory viruses including seasonal and pandemic influenza viruses, seasonal coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2, using different in vitro and ex vivo models as well as animal models (mice, hamsters, guinea pigs and ferrets) representing high-risk populations.
Baz has received several national and international awards including the “Fellows Award for Research Excellence”, NIH (2014) and the Vaccine and Edward Jenner Vaccine Society Young Investigator Program (2015). She has published over 50 peer reviewed articles in high impact journals such as NEJM, Lancet ID, J Am Chem Soc, PLoS Path, J Virol, Clin Infect Dis, mBio, J of Virology, etc. She is currently an active member of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), Antiviral Susceptibility and Surveillance Working Group, Committee of Experts on antivirals for Influenza.