I am a Senior Scientist at Late-Stage R&D and Bioproduction Unit since 2015. In the past 9 years, I have been involved in process development for the production and purification of biologics, including vaccine candidates and gene therapy vectors, using different expression systems, either eukaryotic or microbial, at different scales.
Currently, I have a programme manager role, coordinating different projects at LSR&D-BPU.
I have a Biological Engineering graduation from Instituto Superior Técnico (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 2002), and I hold a PhD in Biochemistry from Instituto de Tecnologia Química Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2009). In my PhD, I have studied sugar metabolism in lactic acid bacteria, with the use of molecular biology tools, biochemical studies, together with NMR analysis performed in living cells, the work enabled the identification of key enzymes and pathways for the central carbon metabolism of this group of bacteria. Part of my PhD work was performed at the Molecular Genetics group, University of Groningen (The Netherlands). I have continued my post-doctoral studies at the Animal Cell Technology Unit from iBET, working on cell line and process development for the production of viral based biopharmaceuticals, for both gene therapy and vaccination. I have published 21 manuscripts, co-supervised 3 master theses and participated in 13 research projects, as principal investigator or as team member.