Catarina Freitas

Catarina Freitas holds a CEEC contract and is currently a Senior Scientist at the Stem Cell Bioengineering and Advanced Cell Models laboratories of iBET and ITQB NOVA (Portugal), since 2022.  

Her research is focused on understanding endothelial cell interaction and immunomodulatory functions in innate immune competent 3D preclinical models (hepatic and neural) and regenerative medicine (cardiac) projects using hiPSC-based approaches.  

Catarina holds a Biochemistry degree from the University of Lisbon and obtained her PhD in Genetics, Virology and Genetics with the University of Lisbon. She pursued her PhD studies in the at IGC (Oeiras, Portugal) contributing to understanding the role of the Notch pathway in vertebrate segmentation. She did a postdoc in Developmental and Pathological angiogenesis at INSERM, Paris, and was a postdoctoral fellow in Northwestern and Yale School of Medicine, USA. Catarina was assistant professor in Cell and Developmental Biology in Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 2014 to 2022. She focused on mechanisms of vascular ontogeny and patterning in development and disease, bringing out important angiogenic signaling pathways involved in endothelial cell guidance and vascular morphogenesis and their roles in cerebral hypoxia, epilepsy, traumatic spinal cord injury, ischemic retinopathies, congenital arteriovenous malformations, as well as cancer. These studies identified negative regulators of neovascularization and potential therapeutical targets alternative to VEGF. Catarina was also involved in dissecting cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurovascular crosstalk using two photon intravital microscopy in development, epilepsy and aging models.