Dr. Matus is a biochemist and earned her PhD degree in 2007 at the Faculty of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago, Chile.

During her PhD studies conducted at the laboratory of Dr. Alfonso González, she worked on a biomedical project in the field of neurobiology aiming to understand the connection between autoimmunity and neurological disorders in the context of human pathology.

She performed postdoctoral training (2008-2011) in protein misfolding and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the laboratory of Dr. Claudio Hetz at Universidad de Chile supported by a fellowship from the ALS Association (USA). Dr. Matus then started her own laboratory at Neurounion Biomedical Foundation. In 2017 she began her work as principal investigator of the Laboratory of Biology of Neurodegeneration at Fundación Ciencia & Vida.