Affiliation: University of Salzburg

Dr. Fatima Ferreira, Full Professor at the Department of Biosciences of the University of Salzburg in Austria, started her career with the completion of a doctoral degree in Dental Surgery from the Federal University of Uberlandia and a doctorate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Following graduation, she joined the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto in Canada as a postdoctoral fellow. After working as a Research Assistant at the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology at the University of Vienna, she became Assistant Professor, and later, Full Professor at the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Salzburg. Her career-related activities include more than 20 appointments or elections to national and international organizations, including Advisory Board Member of the Austrian Science fund, President of the Austrian Society of Allergology and Immunology, and Co-Chair of the Allergen Standardization Subcommittee of World Health Organization/International Union of Immunological Societies, and Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Salzburg. Her research has focused on the molecular and immunological characterization of birch, ragweed, and mugwort pollen allergens. The research on pollen allergens triggered the interest to investigate intrinsic and extrinsic factors involved in the TH2-biased immune responses to allergens as basis for understanding allergic sensitization and for developing novel concepts for allergy vaccines. She has authored/co-authored 238 peer-reviewed articles, which have earned 14,891 citations, according to Google Scholar (https://goo.gl/dKGrkv).