Professor Sergio Vargas scientific career began at the Department of Infectious Diseases, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, working on Pneumocystis with the team that discovered the successful prophylaxis and treatment of this infection.
He later established at the University of Chile in 1995, and expanded this research by searching for the human reservoir of Pneumocystis in the immunocompetent host.
This work led him to the first description of the clinical characteristics and epidemiology of the Pneumocystis infection in infants. His original work in Chile has been reproduced worldwide.
More recently, he moved the long term paradigm that considered Pneumocystis a pathogen restricted to the immunocompromised host, by documenting that Pneumocystis induces lung pathology in the immunocompetent apparently healthy infant host, a concept that his team has further characterized by describing the type and extent of pulmonary lesions in animal models.
Dr. Vargas has established collaborations with many of the world leaders in the Pneumocystis field, and now leads a multi-collaboration grant from the ERANET LAC Program of the European Union that aims to unravel the importance of the primary infection in public health. He has presented these original contributions at international conferences and institutions in the Americas, Asia, and Europe.
