Personal information
Biography
I am a biologist specialised in Environmental Toxicology, being dedicated especially to genotoxicology, toxicopathology and molecular toxicology. I am dedicated to the environment -human interface and I am nowadays putting the skills as toxicologist in service to drug discovery and marine natural products, especially animal toxins. I graduated in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL), followed by an M.Sc. in Ecological Modelling from Instituto Superior Técnico of Lisbon (IST-UTL) and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from NOVA University of Lisbon (2010).
Within Toxicology, I am particularly interested in the dynamics of contaminant interactions, genotoxicants and the relation between pollutants and cancer. My current model of choice is the zebrafish. Developing studies involving multiple and multi–level biomarkers has been a paramount approach to investigate the intricate problems of exposure to realistic mixtures of toxicants, which may involve metals and many classes of organic toxicants, including potential carcinogens and emergent pollutants. I am particularly interested in the mechanisms of DNA damage and repair and how these relate to toxicopathological effects, from inflammation to carcinogenesis. More related to human health risk, I have also done extensive work within the domains of nanotoxicology, nanosafety and even nanomadicine, a field to which I was dedicated during my second post-doc, at the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm, Sweden (2015-1016).
Within Marine Biotechnology I am particularly interested in marine biological toxins and other bio-reactive compounds, their origins, modes-of-action and potential applications. I am particularly interested in venomous or poisonous marine invertebrate eumetazoans, especially among the Polychaeta and the Mollusca.
To address more mechanistic issues of toxicological pathways, either regarding pollutants or marine bioproducts, I have been dedicated to studies in vitro (with human and murine cell lines) and in vivo (using models such as marine bivalves, Daphnia, the zebrafish, murines and many more unconventional models). Molecular Biology, Bioninformatics, Genotoxicology and, especially, Histopathology have become my main technical expertise. I founded and lead the SeaTox Lab@UCIBIO in late 2017, based in the Department of Life Sciences of the School of Science and Technology of NOVA University of Lisbon, where I am an Auxiliary Professor since 2019, which succeeded a position as Auxiliary Researcher awarded in 2016.
Activities
Employment (8)
Education and qualifications (3)
Professional activities (3)
Funding (21)
FA_05_2017_007
PTDC/BTA-BTA/28650/2017
PTDC/BIA-MIB/31864/2017
IF/00265/2015
PTDC/MAR-BIO/6044/2014
EU FP7 contract nº 604305
UID/MAR/04292/2013
EXPL/MAR–EST/1236/2012, FCT
SFRH/BPD/72564/2010
PTDC/SAU-ESA/100107/2008
SFRH/BD/28465/2006
POCTI/CTA/1707/95