She obtained her degree from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of São Paulo (1979), Brazil, her Master's in Biochemistry from the University of Salford (1982), England, and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of São Paulo (1987), Brazil. She completed her post doctoral training in Biochemistry in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in Sao Paulo at the Chemistry Institute, University of Sao Paulo. She is a senior researcher at the Biotechnology Center of Instituto Butantan since 1995. She has participated in several genomics projects and was the general coordinator for sequencing the whole genome of Leptospira interrogans. She has experience in Biochemistry, focusing on Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics and on the following subjects: L. interrogans, leptospirosis, recombinant proteins, host–pathogen interactions, molecular pathogenesis and vaccines. She has supervised Ph.D. students and post doctoral fellows. She was a member of the Technical National Board for Biosafety (CTNBio) (2006–2012). She is Deputy Editor of the Journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.