Professor José Vázquez-Boland

Lay Summary

We study bacterial pathogens that can live harmlessly in the environment and also cause disease in humans and animals. Our research looks at how these bacteria switch from living outside the body to surviving inside it, and how they adapt to live inside our cells. We also investigate how harmful traits and antibiotic resistance develop and spread in bacteria. By understanding these processes, we aim to support the development of better ways to treat and control bacterial infections.

Profile

José Vázquez-Boland holds a veterinary medical degree (1985) and a PhD in microbiology (1990) from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). Before his PhD, he spent time in clinical practice and as a district public health official. Following postdoctoral studies at the Institut Pasteur (Paris), he was appointed Titular Professor at UCM (1993), where he established one of Spain’s first microbial pathogenesis research units. For his achievements he received the Spanish Society for Microbiology’s “Jaime Ferran” Biennial Award (1999), recognising a young investigator’s distinguished career. In 2000 he was appointed to a Microbiology chair at University of Leon (Spain), and in 2002 he took up a chair of Molecular Microbiology at the University of Bristol. Since 2007, he has held the Chair of Infectious Diseases at the University of Edinburgh.

Research Interests

José and his group investigate the infection biology of zoonotic facultative pathogens using Listeria and Rhodococcus equi as model organisms. Their research covers bacterial virulence, adaptation and genomics, pathogen evolution, and antimicrobial resistance. In 1996, he promoted the creation of the “European Listeria Genome Consortium”, for which he and his European colleagues received the EU “Descartes Prize” for Excellence in Transnational Collaborative Research (2008). He later founded a similar consortium that pioneered genomics research into R. equi and now leads international surveillance of a recently emerged multidrug-resistant variant of this pathogen. 

José describes himself as an “all-terrain” microbiologist, equally at ease exploring molecular mechanisms at atomic resolution or addressing issues in bacterial taxonomy and nomenclature. 

Research Theme

Biomedical Education

Course organiser of “Medical Microbiology 3”, 3rd year core course of the Infectious Diseases BSc (hons.), Edinburgh Medical School (2012-2025).

Course organiser of “Host-Pathogen Interactions”, 4th year core course of the Infectious Diseases BSc (hons.), Edinburgh Medical School.

Convenor of the Infectious Diseases Honours Board of Examiners.

Member of Edinburgh Medical School Guiding Coalition.

External Roles

JV-B has regularly served in a number of national and international scientific advisory committees. In September 2025, he became the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the American Society for Microbiology's new journal ASM Animal Microbiology. He previously served as handling editor of mBio (2016–2025) and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2018. 

Representative Publications

Val-Calvo J, Scortti M, Vázquez-Boland JA (2025). Leveraging the subgenus category to address monophyletic genus over-splitting: illustration with recently proposed Mycobacteriales genera. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 75: 006917. DOI 10.1099/ijsem.0.006917

Hainzl T, Scortti M, Lindgren C, Grundström C, Krypotou E, Vázquez-Boland JA*, Sauer-Eriksson AE* (2025). Structural basis of promiscuous inhibition of Listeria virulence activator PrfA by oligopeptides. Cell Rep 44: 115290. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115290. (*co-senior author).

Vázquez-Boland JA, Cain RJ, et al. (2024). Survival strategies of intracellular bacterial pathogens, pp. 457-488. In: Tang YW, Hindiyeh MY, Liu D Sails A, Spearman P, Zhang JR (eds) Molecular Medical Microbiology 3^rd edit. Academic Press. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-818619-0.00105-2.

Val-Calvo, J, Vázquez-Boland, JA. (2023). Mycobacteriales taxonomy using network analysis-aided, context-uniform phylogenomic approach for non-subjective genus demarcation. mBio 14: e02207-23. DOI: 10.1128/mbio.02207-23

Koopmans, MM, Brouwer, MC, Vázquez-Boland, JA*, van de Beek, D* (2023). Human listeriosis. Clin Microbiol Rev 36: e00060-19. DOI: 10.1128/cmr.00060-19. (*co-senior author).

Cain, RJ, Scortti, M, Monzó, HJ., Vázquez-Boland, JA (2023). Listeria InlB expedites vacuole escape and intracellular proliferation by promoting Rab7 recruitment via Vps34. mBio 14: e03221-22. DOI: 10.1128/mbio.03221-22

Prescott, J.F., Boyce, J., MacInnes, J.I., Rycroft, A.N., Van Immerseel, F., Vázquez-Boland, J.A. (eds). Pathogenesis of Bacterial Infections of Animals, 5^th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, 2022.

Val-Calvo J, Darcy J, Gibbons J, Creighton, A, Egan C. Buckley T, Schmalenberger A, Fogarty U, Scortti M. Vázquez-Boland JA (2022) International spread of emerging multidrug-resistant Rhodococcus equi. Emerg Infect Dis 28:1899-1903. DOI: 10.3201/eid2809.220222

Krypotou E, Scortti M, Grundström C, Oelker M, Luisi BF, Sauer-Eriksson^, E, Vazquez-Boland JA. (2019) Control of bacterial virulence through the peptide signature of the habitat. Cell Rep 26:1815-1827. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.01.073

Alvarez-Narváez S, Giguère S, Anastasi E, Hearn J., Scortti M, Vázquez-Boland JA (2019) Clonal confinement of a highly mobile resistance element driven by combination therapy in Rhodococcus equi. mBio 10: e02260-19. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.02260-19

Scortti M, Han L., Alvarez S, Leclercq A, Moura A, Lecuit M, Vazquez-Boland, JA. (2018) Epistatic control of intrinsic resistance by virulence genes in Listeria. PLoS Genet 14: e1007525. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007525

For other publications, visit José's Google Scholar profile