Biography
I am a Scientist in the Antibody Discovery Team at the Novartis Pharma Lab since 2015. A biochemist by training, my PhD studies (Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, 2002) focused on protein activity, stability and (un-)folding of industrially relevant enzymes in non-conventional media.
My enthusiasm for protein stability and molecular enzymology sparked an interest in Structural Biology and during my post-doctoral studies (ITQB-NOVA, Oeiras, Portugal and European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France) I received training and focused strongly on X-ray Crystallography.
Former research interests have contemplated the molecular enzymology of nucleotide active enzymes involved in DNA-repair and “house-cleaning” metabolism in prokaryotes and focus on proteins with biotech applications such as carbohydrate active enzymes and dye-degrading reductases. I have gathered extensive expertise in molecular biology, protein expression and purification, structural biology and various biophysical techniques (X-ray crystallography, Circular Dichroism, steady-state fluorescence, ITC, BLI).