He is a Full Professor at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel). He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences with a specialization in Biotechnology, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Biotechnology from UFPel. He also completed postdoctoral training as a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois (USA), working in Comparative Biomedical Genomics on the development of the Oncopig Cancer Model biomodel. He is a permanent faculty member of the Graduate Program in Biotechnology (CAPES Excellence Rating 7) and the Graduate Program in Biochemistry and Bioprospecting at UFPel. He is a CNPq Research Productivity Fellow in Technological Development (Level 1B), leading the Oncopig Bladder Cancer Project, a CRISPR-edited biotechnology model for preclinical studies. He is currently a Visiting Researcher at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), working on a Comparative Oncology project focused on oral melanomas. He served on the CNPq Biotechnology Advisory Committee (CA-BI) from 2023 to 2026. He was Deputy Coordinator (2018–2021) and Coordinator (2022–2024) of the CAPES Biotechnology Area, and a full member of the CAPES Technical-Scientific Council for Higher Education (CTC-ES) from 2023 to 2024. He was an Affiliated Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (Biomedical Sciences, 2018–2023) and serves on the MCTI Scientific Committee for the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB). At UFPel, he held several strategic leadership positions, including Coordinator of the Biotechnology Undergraduate Program, Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Biotechnology, and Director of the Center for Technological Development (CDTec), contributing to the establishment of Biotechnology as a strategic field within the institution. He founded and currently coordinates the Cancer Biotechnology Laboratory and the Center for Comparative Genomics and Translational Oncology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he conceived and led the Molecular Diagnostics Unit at the UFPel Teaching Hospital (Hospital Escola da UFPel/HUBrasil), which became a regional reference center for testing and epidemiological surveillance. He participated in CoronaVac vaccine studies, coordinated the OncoBank OnCovid Project (PPSUS/FAPERGS), and served as the Principal Investigator for Rio Grande do Sul in the multicenter COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Study funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. As Research Manager (2021–2024) and Superintendent of the UFPel Teaching Hospital (2025), he established the Clinical Research Center, the Realistic Simulation Center, and the Health Innovation Office, while actively contributing to the planning and development of the New Teaching Hospital project under the federal Growth Acceleration Program (PAC). He is a researcher at the National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT) for Translational Biodiscovery and Biomodels (BIO2) and the INCT for Veterinary Vaccines. He is also a member of the Rio Grande do Sul Network for Applied Genomics in Health (ReGGenomAS/HCPA), the ATRION Mentorship Network (Hospital Moinhos de Vento), and the Steering Committee of the One Health Network (Fiocruz/RS). In collaboration with the School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science of the Universidade de São Paulo (FMVZ-USP), he coordinated a FAPERGS/FAPESP-funded project investigating human and canine oral melanomas using exome sequencing and CRISPR technologies. He has supervised or co-supervised 29 M.Sc. and 29 Ph.D. graduates, with a strong emphasis on international training, and received the CAPES Thesis Award as supervisor (2012) and co-supervisor (2021). He has authored more than 170 scientific articles, filed 50 patent applications (10 granted), published six books and 13 book chapters, and has an h-index of 32 (Scopus) and 38 (Google Scholar). Since 2019, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Animal Biotechnology. His research focuses on biotechnology applied to human and animal health, with emphasis on cancer genomics, CRISPR-based genome editing, cell therapy, precision personalized medicine, xenotransplantation, humanized biomodels, and comparative translational oncology. (Translated from Currículo Lattes.)
