Zancan has been an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil, since 2007. She received her MSc in 2002 and her PhD in 2005 in biological chemistry at UFRJ Institute of Medical Biochemistry Leopoldo de Meis. In 2008, she established a novel laboratory devoted to the study of signalling in cancer biology, aimed at controlling the development of cancer cells. She had a supervisory role for masters, PhD and post-doctoral fellows, thus contributing to the training of qualified scientific personnel. At the administrative level, she acted as the Head of UFRJ Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (2012–2014). She authored more than 40 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. In 2014 and 2015, she spent a sabbatical period at the Université Laval, Québec, Canada, where she was an Invited Professor working at projects related to molecular triggers of diabetes. In 2016, she was nominated as TWAS Young Affiliate and was elected as Co-Chair of TWAS Young Affiliates Network (TYAN).

The research area of Figueiredo is neuroscience focused in understand the pathological neuroimmune modulation that occurs in neurodegenerative diseases, aiming the development of preventive or therapeutics strategies to theses conditions. In one of her first projects as an independent researcher, she used mouse model of sepsis to study the late cognitive impairment associated to this condition. We found that a disrupted hippocampal insulin signalling is linked to memory impairment in sepsis-surviving mice, similarly to what has been described in AD models. Her research group also published important findings related to the alpha-synuclein oligomers, an important toxin associated to Parkinson’s disease. During her career, she has developed a strong and broad background in the study of the fundamental mechanisms that modulate neurodegenerative diseases. She is affiliated member of the Brazilian Academic Science and published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers on topics related to pharmacology and neuroscience. Actually she is proposing a challenging project to elucidate neuroimmune mechanisms involved in Zika Virus infection in the adult central nervous system.