Department: Department of Microbiology and Parasitology

Faculty: Faculty of Veterinary Science

Institute: Aquatic Environment Research Institute for Global Health (iARCUS)

Strategic R&D&I cluster: Agrupación Estratégica en Gestión y Producción sostenible de Biorrecursos (BioReDes)

Area: Microbiology

Research group: LREC Escherichia coli Reference Laboratory (LREC)

Email: azucena.mora@usc.es

Doctor by the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela with the thesis Escherichia coli verotoxigénicos (ECVT) O157-H7 y no O157 Prevalencia, serotipos, fagotipos, genes de virulencia, tipos de intiminas, perfiles de PFGE y resistencias a antibióticos de ECVT de origen humano y animal 2002. Supervised by Dr. Jorge Blanco Álvarez, Dr. Miguel Blanco Álvarez.

Professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Lugo (University of Santiago de Compostela), with a strong track record in food safety, animal health and antimicrobial resistance. She holds a PhD in Veterinary Medicine from USC, awarded the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize and the SYVA Prize for Best Thesis in Animal Health (2002). She was a researcher under the Ramón y Cajal Programme for talent attraction (2007–2012). Elected national corresponding member of the Academy of Veterinary Sciences of Galicia in the area of animal health, she currently serves as a Champion (ambassador) of the EUniWell Alliance on behalf of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). She is a member of the Escherichia coli Reference Laboratory (LREC), part of the EU-NRL network for VTEC in food, and of the iARCUS Institute for Aquatic Environment Research for Global Health. Since 2023, she has served on the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN) and collaborates with the National Plan against Antibiotic Resistance (PRAN) of the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS). She is currently Education Officer of the ESCMID Food- and Water-borne Infections Study Group (EFWISG, 2024–2026), and previously served as scientific director of the CEBIOVET research centre at Fundación Rof Codina (2022– June 2025). With over 25 years of experience studying pathogenic E. coli in humans and animals, she has led eight national and regional research projects as principal investigator, supervised numerous PhD theses, and authored over 100 scientific publications (H-index = 50, Web of Science), one of which received the PRAN Award (2nd Edition, 2018). Her research focuses on antibiotic resistance from a One Health perspective. Her current line of work, “Integrated monitoring of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) flow and intervention targets from environment to farm to fork”, received the 2024 PRAN Award for “Best research initiative on antibiotic resistance.” She also leads a Diagnostic and Advisory Service specialising in microbiological techniques for the genotyping of pathogenic E. coli strains.