Quick Facts

  • Name: Filipa Godoy-Vitorino
  • Comes from: Portugal (most precisely from Cartaxo, Ribatejo- Portugal’s second-largest wine region, and known for being also the horse country (home of Lusitano horses).
  • Lives in: Caguas, Puerto Rico
  • Leisure time activities: read, listen to music, spend time with family (including conference calls)
  • Likes: all animals (own a cat), music (all music but especially jazz, bossa, fado, grunge and punk), design (such as Portuguese jewelry, architecture and interior design), photography and gems.
  • Unsuspected talent: I like to sing, poetry, I used to paint (not something I do now), grow herbs and bake bread
  • Currently reading: “21 lessons for the 21st century” by Yuval Noah Harari (an amazing Israeli thinker and historian)

 In a nutshell

  • My research matters because…Microbiomes rule our health
  • One of the inspirations for my research has been…contribute to the knowledge of biodiversity
  • The best thing about my job is…allowing me to be creative and work with a variety of researchers and students
  • My career highlight so far has been…becoming Ambassador for the International Society for Microbial Ecology – a responsibility to educate on the microbiome
  • My advice to aspiring researchers is…work hard, be generous and never give up!

Take a look at Dr Godoy’s American Society for Microbiology highlight here:
https://asm.org/Videos/Microbiology-Is-Your-Microbiome,-Your-Health

Filipa Godoy-Vitorino, Ph.D.
Chair
Dept. Microbiology and Medical Zoology
Associate Professor and PI Microbiome Lab
University of Puerto Rico, School of Medicine

Interview:

I was always very curious. My father – an economist with a naturalist mind – influenced me with his love for ecology and gemology. He was nominated member of the National Geographic Society in 1982, and I grew up with an incredible inspirational library at home and with great respect for our surroundings. I always loved photography and since a kid I wanted to travel the world like a Nat Geo photographer. Thus my choice of studying biology at the University of Oporto (250km away from home) and became even more fascinated with plant biology and evolution. In my last year, with an Erasmus fellowship, I went to study applied phycology at the University of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, where I worked with microalgae and cyanobacteria. This experience was decisive to pursue my Ph.D. in biology in what was so exotic at the time – the tropical island of Puerto Rico!

Humans rely on their microbiomes for health, we have 100 times more types of bacterial genes than human genes, thus understanding changes in the microbiota associated to health and disease is essential. My lab characterizes microbiomes using different Omic approaches to understand the evolution, transmission and functions of host-microbiome symbiosis and to dissect dysbiotic phenotypes. Our focus is mostly on cervical, anal and oral microbiomes in relation to Human Papilloma virus infections and in the use of microbiomes for cancer prevention. Other projects include microbiota modulation of the efficacy of viroimmunotherapy against gastric, glioma and melanoma tumors 2U54CA096297-16 (6434) (NCI); collaborating in the clinical trial California-Mexico-Puerto Rico Partnership (CAMPO) Center for Prevention of HPV-related Cancer in HIV+ Populations 1U54CA242646-01 (NCI) and other projects including the characterization of the probiotic properties of mauby, environmental projects such as the microbiota of marine turtles, sea urchins and most recently a biorepository of samples to identify microbial dysbioses associated to COVID-19 (+) patients in high-risk groups.

The microbiome has become a widespread tool, although not always well and accurately used – and this too has become part of my mission, to teach how to accurately report this type of data. Today the most incredible thing is that due to microbiome research and the extensive biodiversity surveys, solutions have been proposed to prevent disease.

Cesarean section is detrimental to the normal gut microbiota development of newborns with impacts such as auto-immune diseases or obesity later in life. Recent microbial ecology solutions have surfaced based on postnatal microbial restoration, either by using orally-delivered transplantation of maternal fecal microbiota with gauzes dipped in vaginal secretions, or breast milk with a bit of the mother’s fecal matter. C-section inoculated babies quickly develop a gut microbiota similar to vaginally-delivered babies. Knowing that humanity has been losing many microbial species (and continues to, due to modern lifestyle practices and poor diets), the Microbiota Vault -an international NGO to which I am proud to collaborate – seeks to preserve human microbiome collections (from populations with ancestral lifestyles) that may one day be used to prevent disease.

I believe microbiome research is fascinating, so I get the privilege to deeply enjoy what I do. I get to collaborate with incredible people and have an awesome, reliable team that works with independence and give their best all the time.

There are other enjoyable aspects: the focus on biodiversity, the constant surprise and future applicability of our data and the joy of working with amazing human beings. I also serve as reviewer, and in the editorial board of scientific journals, so I give advice on how to best report and interpret microbiome data, and thus teach about the microbiome either directly or indirectly.

I foresee many solutions based on the microbiome, including probiotics that may prevent cancers and other diseases.

I have very little spare time, when I do, I like to read, watch series, cultivate herbs and suculents, sing and connect with family and friends. One of the things I most enjoy is to spend time with my  talented 14-year-old daughter – it’s incredible what I learn from her.