Murilo qualified as an agronomist (1988) with an MSc in Plant Pathology/Virology by the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV, Brazil, 1991), and a PhD in Plant Pathology/Virology by the University of California, Davis (1996). He has been Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at UFV since 1996. His main research interest is the ecology and evolution of plant ssDNA viruses. His early years at UFV coincided with the explosive emergence of begomoviruses (whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses) in Brazil, and his lab was involved in the characterization of several of these viruses. Nowadays, his lab studies begomoviruses at the interface between crops and wild hosts, with a special interest in the factors involved in spillover from wild hosts to crops. He was associate editor of Annals of Applied Biology, Archives of Virology, Journal of General Virology, Plant Pathology and Tropical Plant Pathology (EIC from 2021 to 2017), and is an editorial board member of Virology. He joined the ICTV Geminiviridae Study Group in 2002, and the Potyviridae Study Group in 2006. He joined the ICTV Executive Committee as an elected member in 2014, and became chair of the Plant Virus Subcommittee in 2017.
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