Mayana Zatz is professor of Human and Medical Genetics. Director of the Human Genome Research Center (Hug-cell) and Institute of stem -cells in genetic disorders, at the University of São Paulo (USP). Her research projects in human and medical genetics, are focused mainly in stem-cells (as a tool to understand gene functioning and cell therapy) and neuromuscular disorders focusing the following aspects: gene identification, genotype-phenotype correlations , and mechanisms underlying clinical variability. She published 340 peer-reviewed papers (February 2015), which were cited almost 8700 times (average 31 per paper; H index= 43 web of knowledge, February 2015). She was the mentor of 45 Msc/PhD thesis. Awarded for several international prizes such as: L ‘Oreal ‘s/UNESCO for Women in Science, best Latin American researcher in 2001, TWAS for Research in Medical Sciences in 2004, Mexican Prize of Science and Technology in 2008 and Gaetano Conte in 2011. She was columnist of the weekly magazine VEJA having written more than 250  articles for lay people. Is author of the book Gen ÉTICA. From 2010 to 2012 she was part  of the board of revisors (BORE) of scientific journal Science. Has been actively involved in ethical aspects related to genome research, genetic testing and scientific political decisions regarding the approval of the embryonic stem -cells bill in Brazil in 2005 by the Congress and 2008 by the Supreme Court.