Sara Silva Pereira leads the Parasite Vascular Interactions Lab at the Católica Biomedical Research Centre, in Portugal. She completed her PhD at the University of Liverpool, where her work revealed limited antigenic variation in African trypanosomes, challenging long-held models of immune evasion. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Lisbon, she investigated tissue tropism in these parasites. In 2023, she launched her lab to study how African trypanosomes interact with the host vasculature. Her team integrates parasitology, vascular biology, and microphysiological models to uncover the molecular basis of parasite adhesion and infection persistence.