Dr. Viola Introini

Vascu­lar Infec­tion Group Leader at the Max Planck Insti­tute for the Science of Light (MPL) and the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin (MPZPM) in Erlangen

Viola Introini leads the Vascu­lar Infec­tion research group at the Max Planck Insti­tute for the Science of Light and the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin.

Her research focuses on the biophys­i­cal, molec­u­lar, and genetic deter­mi­nants of malaria, spanning from single cells to tissues and organs.

Her team devel­ops microflu­idic vascu­lar models based on patient-derived data to mimic human vascu­la­ture and dissect biophys­i­cal drivers of malaria patho­gen­e­sis, with the aim to identify novel host-targeted thera­peu­tic strategies.

She has received the Inter­na­tional Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Early Career Scien­tist Prize in Biolog­i­cal Physics and the Giuseppe Bassani Prize from the Italian Physi­cal Society. She has been awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow­ship and the presti­gious Raymond and Beverly Sackler Schol­ar­ship, and holds Cambridge Trust Honorary Status.

She is a member of the European Vascu­lar Biology Organ­i­sa­tion and the German network Infect-Net.