Maria Cristina Navas, is a full professor at the University of Antioquia. She hold an MSc and Doctorate degrees on Virology and a postdoc in liver disease. Since 1.996 She is working on Hepatitis Viruses Research. She has also trained on epidemiology at WHO Course Immunology, Vaccines and Biotechnology Applications on Infectious Diseases and at the Training of HIV infection at the Johns Hopkins University. Since 2010, she is the leader of Gastrohepatology research group at the faculty of medicine of University of Antioquia. As a principal investigator, she planned and carried out several research projects on pathogenesis and epidemiology of HBV, HCV, HDV, HAV and HEV infection. She has funded by the Colombian Minister of Science (Minciencias), PAHO, EcosNord, TWAS and the University of Antioquia. As a part of the commitments to these projects, she has supervised as scientific director 19 undergraduate students and 14 graduate students. Her team published the first survey of HEV in patients and first study of HEV in environmental samples in Colombia that included development of strategies for prevention of HAV transmission in a community without drinking water access. Moreover, her team carried out the first study in Latin America of HBV escape mutants in Amerindian communities and the first characterization of Hepatitis C Resistance associated substitutions (RAS) on samples from Colombian patients. She is currently working on 3 research projects in the framework of the pandemic: Study of functional alterations induced by SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein in macrophages and bronchial epithelium, Nanosensors for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and Monitoring of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater from municipalities in Antioquia State. Finally, one of her interests has been to lead and promote national and international academic events in Virology. Indeed, she has organized 16 scientific meetings, including the first National Virology Meeting that was the kick-off of the Colombian Virologist network.