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Dr. Bianca Victorio is a native of Manila, Philippines and moved to Singapore for postgraduate studies. She obtained a full scholarship from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (YLL-SoM, NUS), Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases (formerly Singapore NITD), and Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (formerly Swiss Tropical Institute) to participate in the 2009 cohort of the M.Sc. Infectious Diseases, Vaccinology and Drug Discovery program jointly administered by Swiss TPH, NITD, and NUS-YLLSoM. She developed a cell-based assay for evaluating antivirals against porcine circovirus-2 (PCV-2), the primary agent causing severe wasting disease in pigs. Afterwards, she transitioned to human virology and trained in enterovirus molecular virology and animal model development at Temasek Lifesciences Laboratory and National University of Singapore during Ph.D. studies. Under the guidance of Dr. Kaw Bing Chua and Prof. Vincent T.K. Chow, she evaluated the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of a mouse cell-adapted enterovirus 71 (EV-A71) virus and identified key residues in the capsid proteins that enabled viral infection of mouse cells. She also developed an immunocompetent juvenile mouse model of EV-A71 infection that exhibited signs of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD), as well as neurogenic pulmonary edema using the mouse cell-adapted strain. Her Ph.D. studies resulted in 3 first-author and 3 second-author publications, as well as several oral presentations in international Virology meetings. 

After obtaining her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology, she subsequently trained as a Molecular Imaging Scientist at Duke-NUS with A/Prof. Ann-Marie Chacko at the Laboratory for Translational and Molecular Imaging (LTMI). She specializes in optical (bioluminescence) and nuclear (PET/SPECT/CT) imaging in preclinical models of viral infections and cancers. She has worked in preclinical imaging of flaviviruses (dengue and ZIka) and respiratory viruses (rhinovirus and influenza). As side projects, she is characterizing novel cell lines expressing nanoluciferase (NLuc) and immunocompetent mouse models bearing syngeneic orthotopically implanted tumours expressing NLuc and which are trackable by bioluminescence imaging (BLI). She is also developing and evaluating oncolytic viruses targeted to glioblastoma multiforme (brain tumours) and lung cancers. Her current research interests include: (1) identification of PET/SPECT imaging biomarkers of disease, pathology, and immune response during therapy in viral infections; (2) development and characterization of nLuc-expressing mouse tumour models; (3) development of oncolytic viruses targeting cancers (brain and lung).