Carina de Fátima Rodrigues holds a degree in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto (UP), a Master’s in Molecular Genetics from the University of Minho, and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Molecular and Cell Biology) from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto. She is also a specialist in Medical Genetics, certified by the Ministry of Health’s Department of Modernization of Human Resources. Currently, she is a Full Professor at the Health School Polytechnic of the Institute of Bragança (IPB) and serves as the coordinator of the Department of Life Sciences and Public Health. She previously worked as a Clinical Laboratory Genetics Technician at the Molecular Genetics Unit of the Instituto de Genética Médica Jacinto de Magalhães (INSA), where she was involved in the assistance service for the molecular diagnosis of several neuromuscular disorders and X-Fragile syndrome. She developed the pilot study « Detection of Trisomy in 24 hours in uncultivated amniotic fluid » in collaboration with the Cytogenetics and Obstetrics Unit of the Prenatal Diagnostic Center. She has been a part of the research project team subsidized by the Commission for the Promotion of Research in Health Care, focusing on the « Molecular characterization of congenital hypothyroidism due to dysormonogenesis in children diagnosed in the National Early Diagnosis Program. » She also collaborated on the Biomimetics project (BIOMIMETIC – A biomimetic Biochip for the diagnosis of diseases related to erythrocyte deformability), funded by PTDC/SAU-ENB/116929/2010 until 2014. Since March 2020, she has coordinated the Molecular Laboratory for COVID-19 diagnosis at the Mountain Research Center (IPB), where she has developed several procedures and trained multiple teams in RNA extraction and amplification. Currently, she is the principal coordinator of the project « SARS-CoV-2 infection in the Northeast of Portugal: developing knowledge and tools towards better management of the disease » (02/SAICT/2020). Her primary interests include the population genetic susceptibility to COVID-19 and assessing the transmission from humans to farmed and companion animals.