Ana M Espino is principal investigator and Professor at the Department of Microbiology and Medical Zoology of University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences Campus (UPR-MSC). Dr. Espino earned her Ph.D. degree in Parasitology and Biochemistry from the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine in Havana, Cuba in 1997. She completed four years of post-doctoral studies (1998 to 2002) in Molecular Parasitology and Immunology at the Department of Pathology of the UPR-MSC. She has has been awarded two patent applications to the United States Patents and Trademarks Office, has published more than 60 scientific articles in peer reviewed journals and have been awarded several times with competitive NIH grants. Her current research program foccus in the identification and characterization of helminth-derived molecules with anti-inflammatory properties to develop biotherapeutic drugs against sepsis and auto-immune diseases.