Saka, Hector Alex
Hector Alex Saka, PhD, Assistant Professor-UNC, Associate Investigator-CONICET.
Hector Alex Saka graduated as Biochemist in 1996 in the School of Chemistry, Catholic University of Córdoba with a grade average of 9.76/10, for which he was honored with the “University Award”.
He then obtained a fellowship from the Government of Cordoba Province as a “resident in clinical biochemistry (bacteriology area)” at the Hospital de Niños de la Santísima Trinidad (the biggest pediatric hospital of Cordoba), where he got training in clinical bacteriology. After his, Dr. Saka obtained a certificate of Specialist in Bacteriology.
In 1999, Dr. Saka was awarded with the fellowship Asociación de Bioquímicos de Córdoba para el Progreso de la Bioquímica (ABC-PB) to complete his training by performing an internship in reference center Servicio Antimicrobianos – Instituto Malbrán (Laboratory of Antimicrobial Agents, Malbran Institute), where he studied mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance in several clinically relevant bacteria including Vibrio cholerae and Shigella.
In 2000, Dr. Saka joined the Bocco’s group and started working in a project aimed to study the pathogenesis of V. cholerae clinical isolates.
In 2001, Dr. Saka obtained a doctoral fellowship from Secyt-UNC and then in 2002 from CONICET to develop his doctoral thesis project “Pathogenesis mechanisms triggered by Vibrio cholerae Cytolysin: cell response in the context of signaling, apoptosis and autophagy” under the supervision of Dr. Bocco.
In 2006, Dr. Saka obtained his PhD and later in 2007 was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship to continue his studies of V. cholerae pathogenesis, also under the supervision of Dr. Bocco.
In 2008, Dr. Saka moved to Duke University in the U. S. A. (United States of America), where he was awarded with the prestigious PEW Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences to perform a postdoctoral training the Raphael Valdivia’s laboratory.
In 2013, Dr. Saka returned to Argentina to the same laboratory where he performed his PhD, with a re-entry post-doctoral fellowship from CONICET. Later that same year, Dr. Saka became an Associate Investigator from CONICET and started his own research group continuing with the study of chlamydial pathogenesis.
Dr. Saka has recently obtained funding from Bunge&Born Foundation and from FONCyT to study persistence in Chlamydia trachomatis.
Currently, Dr. Saka also is an Assistant Professor at the Departamento de Bioquímica Clínica (Department of Clinical Biochemistry), National University of Cordoba, with teaching activities in General Microbiology and Bacteriology. Since 2015, Dr. Saka is the supervisor of one PhD student.
Publications
Dr. Saka has published numerous scientific papers in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. For a detailed list, please see:
https://scholar.google.com.ar/