Matteo comes from Indonesia, a country with too many mosquitoes that carry various deadly diseases including malaria (and thus has a vendetta against them). He has somehow avoided getting any vector-bone diseases so far. During his MRes. in Biomedical Sciences degree at the University of Glasgow, he discovered the world of malaria research and fell in love with it, especially when he got to dissect Anopheline mosquitoes.
He is currently a Wellcome Trust-funded PhD student in Hosts, Pathogens, and Global Health. His project is about discovering if disease tolerance delays the development of anti-parasite immunity in human malaria.
Outside of work, he is almost always dancing (and is part of the university's competition team!), napping, reading mangas, talking to people about his research, and getting new tattoos and piercings.