His line of research is to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms that explain the inflammation of the salivary glands of patients with Sjögren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease characterized by a reduced secretory function of the salivary and lacrimal glands, causing oral and ocular dryness. Currently, his interest is to determine if patients with Sjögren's syndrome present alterations in certain cell organelles of the salivary epithelial cells and if this is related to the glandular inflammation that the patients present

María José Barrera is Biochemist from the Universidad de Santiago de Chile and PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the Universidad de Chile. At the end of his doctorate, he completed a Fondecyt postdoc at the Universidad San Sebastián, under the sponsorship of Dr. Sergio Aguilera from the INDISA Clinic. Since 2018 she is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Dentistry and Rehabilitation Sciences. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of an Initiation Fondecyt and co-investigator of two Regular Fondecyts. She is collaborator of the Doctorate in Cellular Biology and Biomedicine, and the Doctorate in Chronic Diseases. María José is also part of the committee of the Master in Biomedicine

María José Barrera participates as professor in courses of Cell Biology and Molecular Biology for the career of dentistry. In his classes he teaches and highlights the importance of salivary gland epithelial cells in saliva production processes and teaches in a practical way the molecular tools he uses daily in his research such as PCR and Western blot, among others. He also participates as a teacher in postgraduate courses such as Cell Biology