Dr. M. Lucrecia Alvarez has an M.S. in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the National University of Rosario, Argentina. Dr. Alvarez is a full-time Microbiology, General Biology, and Biotechnology professor at Glendale Community College. Dr. Alvarez previously taught microbiology and biotechnology at Mesa Community College, microbiology at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, and biochemistry to master’s students at the National University of Rosario, Argentina. She holds three additional appointments as editor for three scientific journals: RNA & Disease, Clinical & Cellular Immunology, and PLoS ONE. Dr Alvarez is also a scientist with more than 20 years of experience working in a wide area of biology, including transgenic plants and plant-made vaccines, as well as genetics and molecular biology of diabetes and cancer. Dr. Alvarez is the author of more than 30 scientific publications. In 2001, Dr Alvarez obtained the National Science and Technology Award for Outstanding Research in Argentina after developing transgenic wheat with improved nutritional and bread-making quality. In 2002 she joined a world leader group in plant-made vaccines at ASU. She obtained an effective vaccine from tomatoes to prevent bubonic and pneumonic plague. In 2008, Dr. Alvarez started diabetes research at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), where she functionally characterized the first known long non-coding RNA associated with diabetic nephropathy as well as different microRNAs that contribute to diabetic nephropathy, hypercholesterolemia, and atherosclerosis. In 2013, Dr. Alvarez joined the Mayo Clinic of Arizona to work on the genetics and molecular biology of breast cancer. In 2018, Dr. Alvarez accepted a position as a Residential Faculty at Glendale Community College (GCC), where she currently teaches General Biology (BIO181), Microbiology (BIO205), and Seminars In Biotechnology (BIO211A). More recently, in 2024, Dr. Alvarez became a Biology Adjunct Faculty at GCU.