Marcelo Freire, DDS, PhD, DMedSc

Marcelo Freire is an associate professor in the Genomic Medicine and Infectious Disease Department at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). Prior to joining JCVI, Dr. Freire was an assistant faculty member at The Forsyth Institute and Harvard University (Division of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity). Early in his career, he worked on tissue biology of infectious diseases, biofilm-induced bone diseases and antibody engineering. As a dual-scientist and clinician, Dr. Freire’s initial training provided insights in human physiology and unmet clinical needs. As a current president of the Clinical and Translational Science Network (IADR), Dr. Freire is focused on applications of scientific innovations to health care. His research focuses on investigating biological deficiencies in chronic diseases.

Dr. Freire has extensive experience in host response, inflammation biology, transcriptomics and antibody engineering. Inflammation is a fundamental physiological process of normal and pathological conditions. He has led studies that developed novel therapeutics in control of chronic diseases. At JCVI, Dr. Freire is working on investigating links integrating microbiome, metabolism and immune response. In particular his lab is studying mechanisms controlling innate recognition, phagocytosis and activation signals of adaptive immune responses.

Dr. Freire received a DDS from College of Dentistry, Campos, Rio de Janeiro, a PhD in Craniofacial Molecular Biology from University of Southern California, and DMedSc in Oral Medicine and Infectious Diseases from Harvard University.  

Publications