Villa, Luisa

Luisa Lina Villa is an Associate Professor at the Department of Radiology and Oncology of the Faculdade de Medicina of the Universidade de São Paulo and Head of the Innovation in Cancer Research of the Center for Translational Research in Oncology of the Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo (ICESP), São Paulo, Brazil.

In 1972 She graduated in Biological Sciences from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) (1972) and obtained a PhD in Sciences (Biochemistry) from the Institute of Chemistry of USP (1978). She was a researcher at the São Paulo branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research from 1983 to 2011, and was its director from 2006 to 2010. She was a professor at the Santa Casa de Misericórdia School of Medical Sciences in São Paulo from 2011 to 2015 where she coordinated a National Institute for the study of Papillomavirus infections and diseases (INCT-HPV), a comprehensive research program sponsored by the National Council for the Development of Science (CNPq) and the State of São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). She has experience in the area of Microbiology, with emphasis on Virology, Basic Oncology and Epidemiology, acting mainly on the following subjects: human papillomavirus (HPV), cervical cancer, anogenital cancer, head and neck cancer, epidemiological studies of HPV in women and men, immunology of HPV infections, prophylactic HPV vaccines. Much of her research has been international with collaborative projects in Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United States of America.

She is a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and Commander of the National Order of Scientific Merit. In 2018 she received the Biology Prize from The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy.