Pedro Vale

Career Summary.

Research group

I'm a Group Leader at the University of Edinburgh, where my research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious disease.  My research uses the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as an established model of infection, immunity, and behaviour to investigate the causes of individual variation in immune responses, physiological traits and social behaviours, and the consequences of this variation for pathogen transmission and evolution.

Doctoral research

Following a degree in Biology in 2004 from the University of Évora (Portugal), I was awarded a GABBA-FCT fellowship to pursue doctoral research in any lab worldwide. I was later awarded a PhD in 2009 for work done in the model invertebrate Daphnia magna, in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh with Prof. Tom Little.

University of Évora   |   GABBA-FCT fellowship

Prof. Tom Little

A significant finding from my PhD was that host diet can generate variation in disease tolerance, leading to the evolution of highly prevalent and virulent pathogens. This work provided one of the first empirical links between disease tolerance and pathogen spread and evolution.

Postdoctoral research

Between 2010-2012, I conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. Sylvain Gandon at the C.N.R.S. in Montpellier, France.

Dr. Sylvain Gandon

A major achievement was applying classical population genetics theory (Fisher’s geometric landscape models) to pathogen adaptation in variable environments. This work provided a rare experimental test of host specific virus mutational fitness effects, offering fundamental insight into the evolution of multi-host pathogens. 

During this time, I was also awarded an EMBO short-term fellowship to work with CRISPR-Cas pioneer Prof. Sylvain Moineau in Quebec. This work resulted in the first experimental estimate of the costs of CRISPR-based antiviral immunity in bacteria.

Prof. Sylvain Moineau

Wellcome Trust-funded fellowship

In 2013, I was awarded a fellowship by the Wellcome Trust-funded Centre for Immunity, Infection, and Evolution (CIIE) at The University of Edinburgh.

Centre for Immunity, Infection, and Evolution 

I led work showing that anti-virulence and tolerance-boosting drugs – widely claimed to be “evolution-proof” – could in fact select for increased prevalence and virulence under a wide range of conditions.

Chancellor’s fellowship and research funding

In 2014, I was awarded a Chancellor’s fellowship from the University of Edinburgh and a prestigious Branco Weiss fellowship from Society in Science (administered by ETH-Zürich).

Branco Weiss fellowship from Society in Science

I became a permanent Lecturer in Evolutionary Ecology in 2020, and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2023. Since establishing a research group in 2015, I have maintained uninterrupted funding from:

  • Society in Science (ETH-Zurich),
  • BBSRC,
  • NERC,
  • The Royal Society, and
  • the Leverhulme Trust.

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