At present she is full professor at the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department in the Faculty of Biological Sciences of the Universidad de Concepción. Obtained the Biochemistry diploma on April 1974 from the Universidad de Concepción/Universidad de Chile and a Doctor of Sciences degree at the Universidad de Concepción in 1981.
She has been Director and co-founder of the Magister in Biochemistry and Bioinformatics, Director of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and has been part of the Doctor of Biological Sciences since its creation. She has guided numerous undergraduate and graduate thesis. She has been member of the Sociedad Chilena de Química, Sociedad de Biología de Chile, Sociedad de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular de Chile, Biophysical Society, Member, Secretary and founder of the Iberoamerican Society of Bioinformatics. SOIBIO, Member of International Society of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and Member of Latinoamerican Society of Crystallography of recent creation.
After obtaining the Biochemistry degree, and a brief stay at the University of Chile, she obtained an academic position at the Biophysics section of the Department of Physiology of the Instituto de Ciencias Médico Biológicas, today the Faculty of Biological Sciences, to teach biophysics to biochemists and biology teachers. Simultaneously she enrolled at the nascent Doctor of Sciences Program of the University of Concepción with a DAAD scholarship working in controlled release anticancer and anti-depression drugs using biodegradable polymer matrices at the Polymer Labs at University of Concepción (Dr. Eckhart Schmidt and Juan Bartulín 1976-1977) and University of Florida with the financial support from OEA (Dr. George B. Butler, 1978-1980). Full returned to the University in 1981, and in a partnership/friendship with Hilda Cid, she was deeply involved in the area of molecular biophysics specially the investigation of the three dimensional structure of proteins from the theoretical point of view and the beginning of the now called, bioinformatics. At this moment a method to predict the secondary structure of proteins was developed, and continue adding new evidences from that time and until now. More than 10 international courses were given in order to increase the critical mass of investigators in structure and function of proteins and specially Protein crystallography, coordinating biology, physics, mathematics and chemistry. From 1995 the biophysics methodologies were applied to the study of an efficient light harvesting system, the phycobilisome. In 2001, the first 3D structure of R-phycoerythrin determined by a chilean group was published. During those years, also, with a group of young and experienced researchers formed the Iberoamerican network of Bioinformatics that then would become the Iberoamerican Society of Bioinformatics. The purpose of this society was and is to provide bioinformatic education and resources for the members of the society. From 2005 and on, she had the opportunity to work with an absolutely fantastic group of students at different levels that share a dream to mime the photosynthetic apparatus of algae to develop an energy harvesting system capable to provide clean energy at low cost. Following this purpose, “basic science” has been developed which has been published in many scientific journals.
