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Biography
I am a multidisciplinary scientist with over 14 years of R&D experience in the academic environment. I graduated in Applied Biology in 2003 and finished my PhD in Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells (at I3Bs) in 2011, both from the University of Minho. During my PhD studies, I was abroad at the Universitá La Sapienza in Rome at Stem Cells Lab under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Bianco and at the University of Beytepe in Ankara. My PhD work was focused on the development of a fully functional bone tissue engineering approach (since the in vitro to the in vivo models), using chitosan derived biomaterials and human bone marrow MSCs. During 2011 and 2016 I developed post-doc research in I3Bs group, using platelet lysate to supplement culture media of fetal stem cells and to biofunctionalize biomaterials. I also worked with nanoparticles for applications in biomedicine and 3D models for tumor microenvironment studies. At the end of 2016, I joined CBQF/ESB-UCP research team to perform post-doc research with chitosan and codfish derived hydroxyapatite formulations to circumvent periprosthetic joint infections, with a patent submission ongoing. I am the author/co-author of 22 articles, and 3 book chapters, with an h-index of 13 and ~900 citations and participated in numerous international conferences. Furthermore, I was involved in the organization of 5 scientific conferences and I am an invited expert reviewer for several scientific entities and international journals. I also possess major experience in writing scientific projects. Currently, I am a Junior Researcher at Genetic Dynamics of Cancer Cells Group in i3s/IPATIMUP. My main research interests are the study of the biodistribution of pancreatic cancer exosomes during disease progression and to understand how impairing these communication routes may hamper tumor growth, metastasis and improve therapy response.