Maria Freitas received her PhD from the University of Porto (FCUP, 2020), and actually, she is a Junior Researcher (CEECind), at Rede de Química e Tecnologia (REQUIMTE) - Laboratório Associado para a Química Verde (LAQV). Her research is focused on the development of biosensors with strategic applications of nanomaterials, with emphasis on Medical Engineering (non-communicable disease diagnosis; cancer) and Food Analysis (allergens; pathogenic bacteria; GMOs; contaminants). She graduated in Biochemistry and obtained her master in Quality Control. Then after, she integrated an international Bilateral Cooperation Project, as Invited Researcher at the University of Oviedo (UNIOVI, Spain) and a Marie-Curie Action though an International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES-FP7), moving to the Nanomedicine and Nanotoxicology Group at the Physics Institute, University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil). Later she was awarded a PhD scholarship by FCT (Portugal, 2016-2019). The know-how in nanomaterials along with its characterization and rapid target analyte detection through biosensing approaches led Maria Freitas to successful work in the field of medical engineering namely in the development of biosensors for the analysis of biomarkers and tumour cells (CTCs). In 2020, she was a Research Fellow in a highly competitive international project (ERA-NET Cofund) at Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering (ISEP). Then, Maria was contracted as Researcher through an FCT project (TracAllerSens, 2020-2022) for the simultaneous analysis of food allergens. Other than the highly specific nanomaterials for immunosensing approaches (protein analysis), she was involved in the development of genosensors (DNA analysis) and Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP-sensor). Importantly, the quality and impact of her work have gained significant attention from society and the scientific community. Maria supervised Research Fellows, MSc, and BsC students, mentored PhD students, and collaborated with ongoing R&D projects. Overall, Maria Freitas was involved in competitive national and international projects, publishing 25 scientific papers and 2 book chapters. In 2023 Maria was honored with the "Young Researcher Prize" by the Portuguese Electrochemical Society (SPE). As a young researcher and because of her qualification and proficiency, the published work has been cited >800 times, giving rise to an H-index=16 (Scopus ID), also receiving 3 awards (Merit Award for Scientific Publication) and 1 prize (Young Researcher).