Dr. Leite received her Ph.D. in pharmacology in 1995 from the Federal University of São Paulo in Brazil. She went on to do postdoctoral work in the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University, where she later became visiting researcher. She has received funding awards from Edital Universal CNPq, the Banco de Desenvolvimento de Minas Gerais, and the Fogarty International Center. She is currently associate professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

Fatima Leite and her colleagues are working to define the structural and functional features that enable calcium signaling within the nucleus to be regulated. Her project should provide an understanding of how growth factors regulate hepatocyte growth through calcium signaling within the nucleus.