Joana Rodrigues (JR) completed a BSc in Biology in the year of 2016 , in this year JR was involved with a project where she did her BSc dissertation in mixotrophic growth of Tetraselmis CTP4 in CCMAR Marbiotech with the supervision of João Varela the dissertation aimed to study if CTP4 microalgae could be a resource to make biofuel. JR also volunteered as a research assistant in the year 2017 and during her master’s degree she kept working at the MeditBio lab group under the supervision of Sandra Gonçalves, to maintain and micropropagate in vitro Mediterranean plants (Lavandula lantifolia and Thymus lotocephalus), also tried to implement Corema album shoots and seeds into micropropagation with the use of different growth mediums and decontaminations methods. JR finished her master’s thesis under the supervision of Marco Campinho and Deborah Power, her dissertation work was a major contribution for a peer-reviewed article published in 2022 in Science of the Total Environment, with the title “Ioxynil and diethylstilbestrol increase the risks of cardiovascular and thyroid dysfunction in zebrafish”, which JR co-authors. During this time, JR acquired valuable skills, learned how to maintain zebrarium, prepared feed carrying the drugs in micromolar concentrations, collected samples for gene expression and histological analysis, fluorescent immunohistochemistry where JR implemented a new protocol for whole heart zebrafish imaging using lightsheet microscopy. Until June of 2022, she continued working with Marco Campinho as a volunteer technician, at the Algarve Biomedical Centre (ABC-Ri) group, in the zebrafish facility engaging in researching projects like the zebrafish and its relationship with maternal thyroid hormone and their impact on angiogenesis in the development of the blood-barrier-brain of larvae zebrafish, current going project. Additionally, JR had a poster participation as a second author in 19th International Congress in Developmental Biology 2022, Portugal. In July of 2022 JR is currently working as a laboratory technician in the project called SPINY – Identification of responsible mechanisms for functional recovery and axonal regeneration in spinal cord of Acomys under the supervision of Professor Inês Araujo and Professor Marta Vitorino. She is responsible for helping and maintaining the Acomys cahirinus Bioterium in University of Algarve. Since 2022, JR is responsible for the husbandry and care of the Acomys cahirinus colony in the animal house of University of Algarve. During this time, JR is focused on optimizing new AAV reporters for lineage tracing with intracerebral delivery by stereotaxic surgery. In order to characterize neurogenesis in A.cahirinus, JR develop new approaches to identify newly formed neurons in models of brain injury or disease in the African Spiny mouse. Since 2023 JR is also working as microscopy technician at ABC-Ri together with Rui Santos. JR delivered a talk entitled Illuminating Neurogenesis: Unveiling Acomys cahirinus newborn neurons by lineage tracing, at SPAOM in 2023, Portugal. JR has organized 3 scientific events and is activelly doing workshops.JR co-authored 2 and authored 3 posters, being the most recent in the IX Clinical Biochemistry Workshop 2024, Portugal.