Dr. Vela pursued his PhD in Virology and Gene therapy from The University of Texas Health Science Centre, Houston, USA in 2005. He joined as a principle research scientist at Battelle Memorial Institute and rendered services for 3 years. He later became the manager for virology department in the same institute and worked for 2 years. Then, he was a senior research scientist in the same department for 2.5 years. Recently, he joined OHSU as a program manager of the virology department.