Ursula Matte is a biologist with a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (2001). She did a post-doctoral training at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center (USA) in 2006/2007. In 2008 she was accepted as an affiliated member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She is currently the head of the Experimental Research Center, at Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre and a professor of Genetics at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. She is also associated editor for Gene Therapy. She has published over 100 papers indexed in PubMed. Her research interests include molecular diagnosis of inherited diseases, gene and cell therapy, and bioethics. She started working on Mucopolysaccharidosis type I (MPS I), a lysosomal storage disease during her PhD, focusing on molecular diagnosis. Then, using knock- out mice her group designed new therapeutic strategies for this disorder, including cell therapy using microencapsulation and gene therapy using nanoemulsions and gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9.