Biosketch

I’ve graduated in Chemistry from the University of Lisbon in 2002 where I had the opportunity to spend short periods as visiting researcher at the Michael Barber Centre for Mass Spectrometry at the University of Manchester, UK (Professor Jane Thomas‐Oates, 2001) and at the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, UK (Professor Ben Davis, 2002). In October 2002, I joined the University of York, UK to study for a PhD studying Plant-microbe Interactions funded by the EU, within the group of Prof. Jane Thomas‐Oates (Awarded March 2006). From 2006 to 2009, I worked at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, University of Dundee in Scotland as Post‐Doctoral Research Associate under the guidance of Sir Prof. Mike Ferguson FRS, funded by the Medical Research Council, to use a combination of functional genomics and proteomics to uncover new drugs to tackle a major neglected disease, African Sleeping Sickness.

In May 2009, I’ve returned to Portugal to work first at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (funded by Programa Ciência) and later at Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM), where I worked until 2019 as Staff Scientist in the Biology of Parasitism group, headed by Luisa Figueiredo and funded by FCT and European Union. During my time at IHMT and IMM, I’ve worked mainly in the development of new genomic and proteomics tools to study the Glycobiology and RNA biology of Trypanosomes and Plasmodium, having contributed to uncover new pathways and mechanisms relevant for eukaryotic biology in general.

During 2017, after attending the COHITEC and BfK acceleration programmes, I had the chance to launch one early-stage startup, Clarify Analytical, with colleagues from Técnico, to develop new mass spectrometry based diagnostic methods for autoimmune diseases, work that gathered several awards and EU funding to help validate the concept. This journey led me to fall in love with technology transfer and commercialisation and has shaped my future professional decisions, leading to the decision to leave iMM and academia in 2019 and join Beta-i , a collaborative innovation consultancy company to further develop my skills in innovation, entrepreneurship and value creation. In my role, as Senior Account Manager for the Healthcare and Food industries I worked with several multinational companies to help them innovate, collaborate with startups from all across the globe and bring new products/services to market in the insurtech, medtech and pharma arena.

More recently, in 2021, I was challenged by the Swiss company SGS, to lead the implementation of a new Global Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Biosciences. This Center has the ambition to drive the expansion of SGS’ microbiology & molecular biological service offering as integrated services across the multiple industries served by the global SGS Network and business lines, in a wide range of sectors – including mining, energy, environment, biodiversity, industry, buildings, transportation and supply chains. We have a cross disciplinary team that has access to state-of-the-art laboratories located in Lisbon, backed up by the global reach and resources of the world-wide SGS operations

Testimony

My time at iMM was extremely positive and I will always remember the open, collaborative, curiosity-driven, friendly and inspiring environment that was created, where hard work would go hand in hand with insightful discussions and fun beer hours and parties. iMM is in my opinion the TOP Biomedical Institute in Portugal, developing research in key societal challenges and has managed during the years to keep attracting top talent and training a new generation of highly skilled MSc, PhD and post-doctoral researchers that are now taking key roles across the globe in academia and industry.

Contact

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