Luiza Cruz

Luiza is a Drug Discovery Coordinator for the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) office in Latin America, and her work includes coordination of discovery projects in Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, and viral diseases in close collaborations with partners in the region. A pharmacist by training, Luiza obtained her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Imperial College London in 2018, working on kinase medicinal chemistry for lung cancer. While on her Ph.D., she also worked on the development of biochemical assays at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. After concluding her Ph.D., she was appointed a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, working with Prof. Stephen F. Martin in the design and synthesis of ligands of interest in neurodegenerative diseases. After, she joined Prof. Luiz Carlos Dias’ group at the State University of Campinas, Brazil, where she led the synthesis team for the MINDI consortium for 2.5 years before joining DNDi.