Personal information
Biography
Júlia Costa is a biochemist and Principal Investigator at ITQB NOVA. She performed doctoral studies in plant protein glycosylation analysis at ITQB in collaboration with the Oxford Glycobiology Institute, for which she obtained the PhD degree in Biochemistry at the University of Lisbon in 1994. In 2012, she obtained the Habilitation degree in Biochemistry specialization Biotechnology at ITQB NOVA.
Her post-doctoral research included the study of structural and biosynthetic aspects of protein glycosylation in mammalian cells at the German Research Centre for Biotechnology (current Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research), Germany. In 1998, her motivation towards protein glycosylation and glycosyltransferases, led her to found the Laboratory of Glycobiology in a pioneer area at ITQB NOVA. A work program on the investigation of fucosyltransferases was developed and glycomics methodologies were implemented. Later on, collaborative projects with the German Cancer Institute conducted to a new topic in the lab focused on the investigation of protein glycosylation in cancer and, particularly, of extracellular vesicles. Other line of research focused on the investigation of protein glycosylation in neuronal cells and cerebrospinal fluid aiming at unveiling mechanisms and biomarkers of disease, particularly, for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. For this work, collaboration with reference laboratories in Europe and the USA and participation in multicenter studies were crucial. More recently, she collaborated with the University of Geneva towards the implementation of a dataset on Brain Glycosylation at the database GlyConnect from Expasy Swiss Bioinformatics Resource Portal.
During this time, she participated in national and international research projects several as PI and secured more than 1 million Euros of independent funding. She supervised more than 20 students at different levels (8 completed PhD thesis) with successful careers, including leadership positions in academia and industry. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals with more than 3500 citations (h-index 32). She collaborated with grant and fellowship evaluation panels and was member of organizing and scientific committees of research conferences. Her skills include protein glycosylation analysis, glycosyltransferase characterization, extracellular vesicle separation and analysis and biofluid biomarker identification. Her research interests include protein glycosylation and its regulation, applications of extracellular vesicles in health, functions and bioactivity of glycans in health, neurodegeneration, cancer and inflammation.
Activities
Employment (4)
Education and qualifications (8)
Professional activities (9)
Funding (18)
UIDB/04462/2020
ENMed/0001/2013
PTDC/SAU-NEU/100724/2008
500039-2
LSHG-CT-2004-503228
POCTI/CBO/43952/02