Lucio Freitas-Junior is a scientist dedicated to basic and applied infectious diseases research, from the mechanisms of gene regulation and nuclear architecture to drug discovery. From 2005 to 2013, he worked at the Institut Pasteur Korea, where he became Director of the Center for Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery (CND3), leading drug discovery activities for leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, malaria, dengue and chikungunya using phenotypic screening assays. The assays have also been used for whole-genome genetic screenings for the discovery of host factors involved in the progression of infection. Since 2017 Lucio Freitas has been leading the Phenotypic Screening Platform at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences in the University of Sao Paulo, to work with the Pharmaceutical Industry and Academia in translational research, specifically in the discovery of drugs with new mechanisms of actions for the treatment of infectious diseases. He is currently working on several collaborative project to tackle coronavirus and covid-9. He is also the founder of the online platform SociaLab and the recently established company Quasar Bio, which is a company dedicated to develop and validate products for the treatment and control of covid-19.