Dr. Iva Filipovic

Dr. Iva Filipovic is a Co-director of the Center for Systems Infection Biology at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, where she leads Team Maternal-Fetal Immune Dynamics in Infection within the Systems Virology Lab. She holds an MSc in Immunology from Imperial College London and a PhD in Physiology, Development and Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge.

As a translational immunologist, she combines single-cell biology, spatial multi-omics and computational systems modelling to define the immune cell states that drive disease severity and to identify biomarkers that can be used in the clinic. Her current work follows two lines: NK cell biology in chronic HIV, aimed at a functional cure, and immunometabolism in viral infections, studying how chronic (HIV) and acute arboviral (dengue, Zika, chikungunya) infections reprogram immune cell metabolism both in blood and tissues, including the maternal-fetal interface. Her team combines spatial multi-omics with human tissue and organoid models to resolve how local metabolic environments shape immune cell function, persistence and tissue damage, connecting immunometabolism to tissue-level disease mechanisms. She leads Work Package 4 of the European Union HORIZON Research & Innovation Grant COMBAT (101191315) consortium, which integrates clinical cohorts, host molecular networks, viral factors and environmental data to develop AI-based tools for predicting dengue severity. She is also a main supervisor in VIBES (MSCA Doctoral Network, 101312032), which brings together virology, artificial intelligence, and biophotonics in a convergent approach to develop innovative antiviral strategies against emerging flaviviruses. Her research is funded by the European Commission, Swedish Research Council, the Åke Wiberg Foundation, and Jeanssons Stiftelser. Within MERIT, she is the main supervisor of DC15, together with co-supervisor Dr. Ujjwal Neogi, investigating metabolic reprogramming of immune cells as a route to a functional cure for HIV. She is also a co-supervisor for DC12.