Profile

Professor Santuza Teixeira

Santuza Teixeira is a Full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Immunology at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and did postdoctoral training in Molecular Parasitology as an HHMI fellow at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. After participating in the international genome consortium network that sequenced several protozoan parasite genomes, her group at UFMG began characterizing several genes involved with host-parasite interactions during infection by Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease and Leishmania spp, which causes different forms of leishmaniasis. Her group has also focused on the study of molecules involved with DNA repair and stage-specific gene expression in these parasites. To do this, she has developed gene manipulation tools and protocols, including highly efficient genome editing protocols based on the CRISPR-Cas9 technology.