João Gonçalves Martins graduated with distinction in 2021 from CESPU (Cooperativa de Ensino Superior Politécnico e Universitário, Porto, Portugal) and completed his MSc in Biomedical Research, specialty Neurosciences (Faculty of Medicine of University of Coimbra) in 2023 under the co-supervision of Joana Isabel Simões Ferreira at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC, Portugal) and Ana Cristina Rego (CNC, Portugal). After completing his MSc, João stayed at CNC, working as a research fellow in the SynBridge project, “SynBridge - A New TransSynaptic Bridge: Functional characterization of the NMDA receptor-Neurexin interaction” (reference: 2022.05386.PTDC), financed by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), of the University of Coimbra until December 2024. During this time he applied and was granted the FCT PhD scholarship and enrolled in the Doctoral Programme in Experimental Biology and Biomedicine where he will develop his PhD project titled "EphA4’s role in synaptic function and neuronal vulnerability in Alzheimer’s Disease through the modulation of glutamate receptors". He was also selected to participate in the Horizon Europe Young Observer program from the European Commission, where he had the opportunity to follow the evaluation steps of competitive European research calls. He is also trained in laboratory animal science.