I am an Invited Assistant Professor (full time) at Instituto Universitário de Ciências da Saúde CESPU since 2024 and a Researcher
Collaborator at the Cancer Drug Resistance (CDR) Group at i3S, Portugal. I am a Managing Committee member (representing Portugal)
of the COST Action CA21116 (2023-2027). I hold an H-index of 19 with 43 publications (23 in the last 4-years), being 1st
author in 12 papers and last or corresponding author in 9 papers. In 2006, I graduated in Applied Biology at Univ.Minho (UM),
Portugal. In 2012, I completed an European PhD in Health Sciences (4-years FCT grant) at UM, in collaboration with the Institute
of Cancer Biology (Denmark) dedicated to identify novel compounds/combinations to improve cancer therapy. In 2012, I moved
to UK for a 3-year Postdoc contract at Division of Cancer Therapeutics, Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). My main project
aimed to identify novel genes crucial in pancreatic cancer, by performing a high throughput screening of a panel of cell lines.
Promising results obtained prompted new research projects inside the group. I was also involved in multidisciplinary Drug
Discovery Projects by performing preclinical studies that led to the enrollment of 2 small molecules into Phase 1 clinical
trials. I also generated pancreatic cancer cells resistant to a drug to test “in house” small molecules. In 2015, back to
Portugal, I joined CDR at i3S, led by Prof. Helena Vasconcelos. I was selected by the same group for a Postdoc Grant (1 year,
2016) within a funded project to study the contribution of Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) to cancer drug resistance. In 2017,
I was awarded with an Individual FCT Postdoc Grant (2017-2023), in the same group, to understand the contribution of macrophage-secreted
EVs to drug resistance in pancreatic cancer. This work, in collaboration with IPO-Porto, was published in Cancer Letters,
2021 (PMID: 33212158) as 1º author, giving rise to a new line of research in the group. I am also involved in other related
projects to identify novel compounds/drug combinations to counteract cancer drug resistance. In 2021, I received a financial
stimulus to lead a “Beacon Project” in the framework of Porto Comprehensive Cancer Center. I was also member in several competitive
funded projects, from N2020, Centesis and FCT. I have been establishing strong international collaborations as a member of
3 COST Actions: CA21135: “Modelling immunotherapy response and toxicity in cancer” (2022-2026); CA21116: “Identification of
biological markers for prevention and translational medicine in pancreatic cancer”(2022-2026) and CA17104: “New diagnostic
and therapeutic tools against multidrug resistant tumors” (2018-2022). I am supervising 5 PhD (ongoing) and 11 MSc (1 ongoing)
students, and 11 (1 ongoing) students doing master/course degree. I was involved in teaching activities, giving practical
classes as Invited Assistant at Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, in 2021 and 2023 (6 months) and as an Invited Professor
at Dep. of Biology-UM in 2022 and 2023 (6 months). I was a Guest Editor of 3 Special Issues: “Drug Repurposing for Cancer
Therapies” (IJMS), “Targeting the tumor microenvironment for cancer treatment” (JMCM) and “Bioactive Molecules as Multidrug
Resistance Modulators" (Molecules). I am on the Reviewer Board of IJMS, Molecules, JMCM and Cancer Treatment and Research
Communication. I reviewed more than 50 papers for international journals. I am a Science Ambassador for EACR . I am an EORTC
member. I am also involved in writing funded competitive projects, in organizing and as scientific committee of national
and international meetings. I have been invited as jury member of doctoral and master thesis, and as an evaluator of national
and international research projects.