Fabiana Alves is a medical doctor, who graduated from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, with residency in Pediatrics. A PhD thesis on the molecular epidemiology of malaria in the Amazon region was followed by a post-doctoral position at TDR/WHO. She was a professor of parasitology at the University of São Paulo, coordinated projects at research institutes and also worked as a project manager for a clinical research organisation.

Fabiana has 20 years of experience in research on tropical diseases, including malaria, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease and schistosomiasis, with the last 15 years principally dedicated to clinical research for the development of new treatments for neglected diseases, managing clinical trials from Phase I through to Phase IV.