基本信息
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Career Trajectory
Bio
I am a highly motivated young researcher with a Biochemistry background and expertise in Cell Biology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology approaches and techniques.
I initiated my higher education in 2013, at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisboa (FCUL), where I first got a BSc degree in Biochemistry and then an MSc degree in Medical Biochemistry. I did my MSc thesis in cancer signaling pathways at the Dept of Human Genetics of the National Institute of Health (Portugal) under the supervision of Dr. Peter Jordan and Dr. Vânia Gonçalves. I specifically studied the effect of three candidate proteins (ESRP1, RanBP2 and PTBP1) on the alternative splicing of RAC1B, a protein variant overexpressed in colon cancer. I applied basic Molecular Biology techniques (including PCR, DNA sequencing and cloning, RNA purification and cDNA synthesis) to generate expression vector tools, and then transfected these into cultured cells together with a splicing minigene reporter. I also depleted endogenous protein through RNA interference and learned how to analyze proteins in cell lines by SDS-PAGE, Western blot and immunofluorescence microscopy.
Since January 2020, I have been working in the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) field at BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, under supervision of Prof. Margarida Amaral, Drª Iris Silva and Drª Ines Pankonien. My work is focused on improving CF diagnosis in cases of atypical CF by carrying out extensive CFTR gene sequencing and electrophysiological analyses in patient-derived materials. I have used Ussing chambers to measure CFTR-mediated chloride secretion in rectal biopsies, performed forskolin-induced swelling assays in patient-derived intestinal organoids and performed RT-PCRs to detect possible deep intronic mutations in the CFTR gene. In cell culture, I work with human intestinal organoids and with human respiratory basal cell lines BCi-NS1.1 and BCi-CF1.1 (the latter generated in our lab). I am highly motivated to continue working in particular on this unique model of respiratory basal cells to understand which role CFTR plays in epithelial differentiation and regeneration.
When I started working in the CF field, I learned that individuals with CF have an elevated predisposition to develop cancer. Having worked on cancer before I found it interesting to further investigate this correlation. Even though several studies demonstrate a link between CF and cancer, the mechanisms behind it are still unknown. With the increase in life expectancy resulting from the novel highly effective CFTR modulator therapies this becomes an emergent challenge in the field of CF. Therefore, I believe the current unmet need in CF is to understand the role of CFTR beyond being an ion channel. It has been shown that EMT is an active process in CF and epithelial differentiation is impaired in the presence of dysfunctional CFTR. I think this is very compelling topic.
As of January 2022, I started my PhD in Biochemistry in the BioSys2 PhD programme at BioISI, FCUL, under Dr. Prof. Margarida Amaral, Dr. Ines Pankonien and Dr. Emanuel Gonçalves supervision. The main goal of my PhD project is to elucidate the role CFTR plays in epithelial differentiation, epithelial–mesenchymal transition, and ultimately cancer so as to identify novel CF drug targets for a better health of individuals with CF.
Research Interests
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FRONTIERS IN MOLECULAR BIOSCIENCES (2023): 1155705-1155705
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