Dr. Teixeira is an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Immunology at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. She received her Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Lausanne. She did postdoctoral work with gene expression in Trypanosoma cruzi at the University of Iowa College of Medicine supported by an HHMI Postdoctoral Training Fellowship she received in 1991. In 1997, she received a Research Productivity Fellowship from the National Research Council of Brazil.

Santuza Teixeira studies the mechanisms controlling gene expression and genomic variability in Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease. She is investigating differences in gene expression that occur during the parasite life cycle and the activity of DNA recombination and repair machinery responsible for the genetic diversity observed in the T. cruzi population.