Manuela Pucca, PhD

Full Professor of Medical School at Federal University of Roraima

Professor Pucca holds a bachelor’s in biomedical sciences (2004), a MS.c (2008) and a Ph.D. (2012) in Immunology, Department of Biochemistry and Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. From 2012-2016, she was a postdoc fellow of the Animal Toxins Laboratory at the Department of Physics and Chemistry, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. Moreover, she performed a 1-year postdoc (2014-2015) in the Laboratory of Toxicology and Food Chemistry at the Catholic University of Leuven (KULeuven), Leuven, Belgium. Since 2016, she is a full professor at the Medical School of the Federal University of Roraima (UFRR), Boa Vista, Brazil. Recently, she was also affiliated as a visiting professor at the Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), in Lyngby, Denmark (Nov2018-Mar2020). Dr. Pucca’s research is focused on Immunotoxinology, especially regarding the discovery of human recombinant antivenoms and bioprospection of venom-derived peptides.Thus, she is known in Brazil and internationally as one of the pioneers to conduct research in the next-generation antivenoms. Also, she leads clinical researches in hospitals and health care facilities of Roraima aiming to understand the severity of locally snakebite envenomings – Snakebite Roraima (www.snakebiteroraima.com). Since Roraima is placed in the Brazilian Amazon Forest, Manuela is leading snakebite research in isolated indigenous communities.