Estefanía is a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Scott J. Tebbutt at St. Paul’s Hospital. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from the University of the Armed Forces-ESPE, Ecuador in 2010, and completed with honors a Master’s degree in Biomedical Biotechnology at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain in 2014. Estefanía was a Lecturer of Medical Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of the Americas, Ecuador, from 2016 to 2021.
Her research aim is to develop biomarkers to better understand the molecular etiology of long-COVID (LC) and improve its diagnosis. Her research is interdisciplinary including a scoping review, qualitative research to address clinicians’ and patients’ perspectives, and analyzing transcriptomic markers to develop a biomarker panel for LC patients. As a trainee at the PROOF Centre, she hopes to deepen her data analytical skills and her understanding of bioinformatics and statistics for biomarker discovery.