Biography

Carmen Jerónimo is the Director of the Research Center, Group Leader of the Cancer Biology & Epigenetics Group and the Scientific Coordinator of the Biobank at the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO Porto), as well as a guest Full Professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Genetics and the Director of the Master Course in Oncology at the University of Porto, teaching Pathology and Cancer Epigenetics, both undergraduate and Post-graduation Courses.
She obtained her BSc in Biology (1994), MSc in Oncology (1998), PhD in Biomedical Sciences (2001), and Habilitation in Pathology and Molecular Genetics (2011) at the University of Porto. She performed her Ph.D. project at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), USA under the GABBA Program, working on prostate cancer genetic and epigenetic alterations. From 2002 until 2007, she was a Post-doctoral Fellow and Invited Researcher at IPO Porto, in collaboration with JHU, working on the detection of neoplastic cells by DNA-based technology in clinical samples obtained from non-invasive or minimally invasive methods. In 2008 she established her independent group at IPO Porto, working on Cancer Biology and Epigenetics (FCT-2008 Science Program).
She has supervised 6 PhD students and co-supervised 7 PhD students, as well as supervised 50 master students and several undergraduate students. Presently she mentors 2 Junior Researchers, 6 PhD students, and 3 Master students.
As an independent Researcher, she served as Principal Investigator of more than 20 grants and participated in 14 other projects granted from different National and International agencies under competitive concurrence (Total Amount of 3M€).
She has authored or co-authored more than 250 international scientific publications including 12 book chapters and several 75 review articles (H-index 55; WoS 12/2023), including in first quartile (Q1) journals; Clin Cancer Res, Cancers, Cancer Letters, Cell Death Dis, Clinical Epig, Br J Cancer, Eur J Cancer, J Cell Mol Med, J Hematol Oncol, JNCI, Mol Cancer, Mol Oncol and Nat Commun, Oncogene, PNAS]. In 2012 she collaborated on a patent submission (Methods and biomarkers for detection of bladder cancer US 20130210011/ EP 2630261 A1/ WO 2012052844 A1).
Her research interests are focused on the characterization of the epigenome of tumour cells and the identification of functional changes involved in cell epigenetic homeostasis breakdown. In the context of Personalized Medicine, she works on developing new cancer epigenetic biomarkers based on liquid biopsies and in drug discovery based on the modulation of epigenetic aberrations. Owing to the relevance that Immuno-oncology has demonstrated in recent years, she is also investigating the epigenetic expression modulation of biomolecules involved in immune checkpoint regulation, aiming to improve immunotherapeutic strategies by combination with epi-drugs. More recently, she started tackling the contribution of deregulated non-coding RNAs and their interaction with other epigenetic mechanisms in malignant transformation.
Currently, she serves as Section Editor of Clinical Epigenetics and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Epigenomes, and she is also an MC member of COST Action European Epitranscriptomics Network- CA16120-EPITRAN and Chair of the Board- Section of Urological Research (ESUR) of European Association of Urology (EAU).
She usually acts as a grant reviewer for multiple national (FCT Investigator Call 2013 e 2015) and international agencies (2003-Health Research Board- HRB)-IR; 2006-Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro; 2006, 2007-National Medical Research Council–Singapore; 2007,2015-Cancer Research UK; 2010-Binational Science Foundation Israel; 2011,2016,2018, 2022, 2023-Swiss National Science Foundation-SNSF; 2012-WILLIAMS BARKER, MRC, UK; 2013,2015-Swiss League Against Cancer-KFS; 2013,2015-FWF Austrian Science Fund; 2014, 2020-PROSTATE CANCER UK; 2016,2017,2021,2023-Fund for Scientific Research-FNRS–BL; 2019-Agence Nationale de la Recherche, FR; 2019-Fundaciò La Marató, SP), 2022-Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg-CORE MULTI-ANNUAL THEMATIC RESEARCH PROGRAMME; 2022-Institut National Du Cancer: SIRIC 2022-Integrated Cancer Research Site Designation, France; 2023-Novo Nordik Foden Laureate Research Grants 2023, Norway

LINKS:
http://www.ipoporto.pt/en/ensino-investigacao/grupo-de-epigenetica-biologia-do-cancro/