Mariana Baz

Dr. Mariana Baz is an Adjunct professor position at Université Laval (UL) in Québec City, Canada. She is also the Head of a new state-of-the-art aerosol containment level 3 (CL3) and Animal CL3 laboratories, which are in the process of certification, at the CHU de Québec Research Center. Dr. Baz has over 15 years of experience in the Virology field, specifically in the influenza virus field. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemist from the University of the Republic, in Uruguay. She completed a Master’s and Doctoral training with Dr. Guy Boivin at UL, where she focused on antiviral resistance of seasonal and pandemic influenza viruses as well as the study of viral pathogenesis and transmissibility of different human and animal influenza viruses using mice and ferrets as animal models. During her graduate studies, Dr. Baz has made great contributions to the influenza virus
antiviral therapy community, described a novel genotype of influenza virus conferring resistance to different neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir and zanamivir) and discovered new molecular markers that enhance the level of oseltamivir resistance. Dr. Baz was a Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-2015) in the laboratory of Dr. Kanta Subbarao, world renowned for her work in the development and evaluation of pandemic strains of influenza viruses, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Maryland, USA. During her 5-year postdoctoral training, she gained a valuable expertise in seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccine development, transmission of zoonotic influenza viruses in ferrets as well as work with highly pathogenic influenza (HPAI) viruses such as H5N1, H7N7, etc, in CL3 laboratories. In her current position, Dr. Baz is focusing on new alternative therapies for the treatment of influenza in immunocompromised animal models. In addition, she is also involved in the discovery and evaluation of antivirals for zika viruses. Finally,
she is managing a new CL3 laboratory where she will perform in vitro and in vivo studies (mice, guinea pigs, ferrets and Non-Human-Primates (NHP)) including development and preclinical evaluation of antivirals and vaccines for newly emerging viral diseases of global importance including pandemic influenza viruses, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Chikungunya virus, yellow fever, etc. Dr. Baz has authored more than 37 peer-review publications (> 1640 citations, h-index 20) in high-impact journals such as New England Journal of Medicine (Impact factor (IF): 79.258), The Lancet Infectious Disease (IF: 25.148), Clinical Infectious Disease (IF: 9.117), Mbio (IF: 6.689), PLOS Pathogens (IF: 6.158), Journal of Virology (IF: 4.663), etc. She regularly reviews
manuscripts for international journals such as Journal of Virology, Vaccines, Antiviral Therapy, Emerging Infectious Diseases, etc. She reviews grant applications for national (CIHR) and international programs (Research & Development grant in Uruguay). She is co-principal investigator with Dr. Fernando Silveira, from University of the Republic in Uruguay, in a “I+D project” (Research & Development) grant, to develop and evaluate nanoadjuvants for use in
influenza vaccines. Her curriculum lists several international awards, presentations at national and international conferences (n=38), workshops and symposia. She supervises students and is involved in national and international research projects.

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