Dr. Núñez earned her degree in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering from the University of Chile. In 2017, she completed her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the same institution and, during that period, also served as a graduate researcher at Columbia University. After completing her PhD, she began a postdoctoral fellowship at Centro Ciencia & Vida, funded by an ANID postdoctoral fellowship. In December 2021, she was awarded an ANID “Iniciación” grant to begin her work as an associate researcher at Centro Ciencia & Vida and Universidad San Sebastián.

Her current research focuses on abnormally expanded autoreactive memory B cells in autoimmune diseases, with the aim of better understanding the mechanisms underlying disease relapse and how to overcome therapeutic failures. Her group seeks to characterize tissue-resident memory B cells in models of systemic lupus erythematosus and their resistance to B-cell depletion therapy with rituximab. During her doctoral studies, her group was the first to describe a unique subset of memory B cells and plasma cells located in the human thymus. Another line of her team’s work examines the mechanisms underlying the formation of memory B cells in the thymus.