Marcela Mercado Reyes
Bacteriologist, with a master’s degree in Clinical Epidemiology and a specialist in Field Epidemiology. She is an associate researcher with more than 20 years of experience in basic and applied research in public and private institutions. She has been a researcher in projects related to vector- borne diseases, evaluation of health technologies, analysis of diagnostic tests, maternal and perinatal health, and vaccine effectiveness, among others, research that has resulted in more than 40 publications in indexed journals.
She has had teaching experience in undergraduate and postgraduate university programs. During her working experience she has conducted several research projects related to emerging infections caused by Aedes spp. In Colombia, such as “Intensified surveillance of pregnant women with Zika”, “Evolutionary analysis of viral genome sequences to establish the determinants of Zika virus transmission in Colombia”, “Determination of the characteristics associated with mortality due to Chikungunya virus” among others.
Currently, she works as the Public Health Research Director at the Colombian National Institute of Health. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic she led the SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study in the country, the development of the ELIPSE-COL test for COVID-19 and currently coordinates the National SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Characterization Program.