Sofia Benfeito (SB) graduated in Chemistry in 2010 at Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto (FCUP) and received her M.Sc.
in Chemistry in 2012 in the same institution. In July 2018, she completed her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toxicology
speciality, at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto, which was titled as European Doctorate. Her Ph.D. thesis
was focused on the design and development of multi-target agents based on naturally occurring scaffolds for neurodegenerative
diseases, such as Alzheimer's (AD). During her Ph.D., she improved and solidified knowledge related with the synthesis and
structural characterization of bioactive compounds. She also acquired experience in biological screenings in cell-based and
cell free systems (e.g.: antioxidant activity, cytotoxicity, enzyme inhibition, permeability studies), in mitochondrial uptake
assays in Rat Liver Mitochondria and in monitoring bioenergetics of mitochondria and live cells in real time using Seahorse
XFe96 Extracellular Flux Analyzer. The work developed was considered a major breakthrough and she was also internationally
awarded by Paul Ehrlich European MedChem Network-PhD Label (Italy, 2019). Currently, as Junior Researcher, she is engaged
in the synthesis of new chemical entities for phenotypic/target-based screenings and in the optimization of lead compounds
to develop pharmacologically viable candidates. SB is the Principal Investigator of an Awarded FCT Project, which started
in March 2023, "DeFend - De-ironing Friedreich's Ataxia with innovative mitochondria-targeted chelators" (2022.04633.PTDC),project
with the collaboration of Dr. António Currais (Salk Institute, USA), and the Co-Principal Investigator of the Awarded FCT
Project, from February 2022 to July 2023, "NOXIous - Development of bona fide targeted covalent inhibitors to unravel NOX2
crystal structure" (EXPL/BIA-BQM/0492/2021), project with the collaboration of Professor Andrea Mattevi (UniPV, Italy). SB
participated as a Researcher in other numerous funded R&D projects, from which resulted 31 peer-reviewed publications in international
high impact factor journals (10 as first author, 2 as corresponding author, 86% in Q1), 7 book chapters, 92 communications
in Poster, 47 Oral communications, as well as 35 abstracts in conference proceedings. The citation count from Scopus is a
total of 420 resulting in an h-index of 10. Moreover, she was also co-inventor of 1 international patent (PCT/IB2017/056412;
US20190248816), which the commercial exploitation was licensed to the MitoTAG spin-off company (2017). SB attended with full
grants 3 international training schools: the European School of Medicinal Chemistry (Italy, 2016), the MuTaLig COST Action
CA15135 Multi-Targeting Biophysical Training School (Germany, 2018) and Summer School in Pharmaceutical Analysis (Italy 2021).
In addition to her research activities, she participated as invited Professor in Medicinal Chemistry and Bioorganic Chemistry
classes and supervised several students in PhD Thesis, Project (Chemistry and Biochemistry BSc) and Dissertation (Chemistry
MSc) classes (18 students in total). Over the last 5 years, SB was actively involved in science dissemination activities
and established national/international collaborations with 23 groups that can add value to her current research activities.
