Ana Patrícia Quendera

I am a Post-doctoral Researcher at the Food Safety and Microbiology Lab of the Food & Health Division of iBET, where I have been working since July 2023.

During this time, I have been involved in the development of strategies to detect, reduce and eliminate thermo-acidophilic spore-forming Alicyclobacillus bacteria that cause food spoilage and represent a threat to the agri-food industry. My research areas are microbiology and molecular biology. I also have expertise in antimicrobial susceptibility testing assays, molecular cloning, animal cell culture and fluorescence microscopy. I am also interested in host-microbe interactions and regulation of gene expression.

I hold a degree in Biology (branch of Molecular Biology and Genetics) (2012) and an MSc in Applied Microbiology (2014) from Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa. In November 2023, I obtained my PhD degree in Molecular Biosciences from Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, which was focused on studying the roles of the exoribonuclease PNPase in gene expression in the human pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, namely in biofilm formation and in host cell invasion.