I have a background in psychiatry, epidemiology and neuroscience. My clinical and research career started studying schizophrenia, did a PhD at King's College London in molecular neuroimaging of glutamate and dopamine systems. Back in Brazil, I started leading a clinical-neuroscience group working with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (PROESQ) together with an integrative neuroscience laboratory (LiNC) focused in translational neuroscience including psychopharmacology, neuroimaging (functional/structural/molecular), genetics, cognition, blood biomarkers, and molecular biology in animal and human models. The focus of my career turned to the early stages of mental disorders and established PRISMA, the first clinic for people at risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in South America. Two large research grants helped the growth of the scientific production: “Prevention in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder from Neuroscience to Community: a Multi-Staging, Multimodal and Translational study” and the “The Brazilian High Risk Cohort” that follow 2,500 children in the transition to adolescence. I have bene publishing several high impact scientific articles (>260 papers) and patents ranked among the top researches in Brazil. We also created a school mental health program (‘Cuca Legal’), literature to the lay public, awareness and anti-stigma actions, and implementation of policies to help people with mental disorders. For these actions, I have received the 'Medalha do Mérito Legislativo’ the most important award of the Brazilian Congress. With Prof Jair Mari we have recently founded the Y-Mind a cutting-edge foundation converging approaches towards ‘prevention of mental disorders’.