Prof. Luis G. C. Pacheco is an Associate Professor and deputy head of the Department of Biotechnology, Institute of Health Sciences, Federal University of Bahia, in Salvador-BA, Brazil. He was also a young affiliate member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, between 2018 - 2022. In 2019, he worked as a Visiting Researcher at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School, in Boston-USA. His 2010 PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology was obtained from a leading university in Brazil, the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), and he was awarded an international split-site scholarship to perform part of his PhD studies (2008-2009) at the University of Warwick, in the United Kingdom. For over 15 years, he has been working with biotechnology innovation to develop and validate molecular diagnostic methods for detecting bacterial and viral pathogens in humans and animals. Notably, in recent years, he has been dedicated to studies aimed at rapidly detecting antimicrobial resistance genotypes in priority bacterial pathogens and detecting emerging viral agents, including Zika virus, Dengue virus, and SARS-CoV-2, using innovative technologies such as NGS-based methods and CRISPR diagnostics.