I am, since 2023, pursuing a Ph.D. in Biotechnology and Biosciences at the Instituto Superior Técnico da Universidade de Lisboa, focusing on the correlation between chitin catabolism and activation of secondary metabolism in marine bacteria. In my first year, I successfully expressed and characterized a chitinase from uncultured coral symbionts using synthetic molecular biology and am preparing the corresponding manuscript for publication. During this time, I attended three workshops on the challenges of preparing and processing transcriptomics and metabolomics data in preparation for an in-depth study of the correlation of chitin catabolism and secondary metabolism of the antibiotic-producing marine bacterium Aquimarina aquimarini. By combining transcriptomics, untargeted and targeted metabolomics, and armed with the closed genome of Aquimarina, I hope to shed more light on its chitin catabolism, and to determine whether it is suitable for further drug screening assays and/or for the discovery of chitinase enzymes with industrial potential. During my Bachelor in Biology at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia da Universidade de Lisboa (2019-06-28), I completed three internships, studying RNA editing in grapevine flowering. During my Master in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (2022-02-25), I studied the antimicrobial activities of a collection of marine bacteria, involving phylogenomics, chemical extraction of compounds and screening, and metabolomics, which gave me the knowledge base and interest that I am now applying in my Ph.D., and resulted in a first-author publication in the Q1 journal Marine Drugs. So far I have authored one research article, one oral presentation and presented four posters at conferences in Portugal, Switzerland and Denmark. I am a hardworking person who enjoys new challenges and I work well in teams with diverse expertise. I thrive in a flexible environment where I have the freedom to organize my work and hope to continue producing excellent scientific results that push the boundaries of knowledge.