I obtained my licenciatura degree in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon in 1998 and completed a PhD (supported by an FCT fellowship) in Biomedical Sciences with Distinction from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon in 2005. I continued my scientific career as a postdoc in Imperial College London, U.K., where I gained expertise in cancer cell signalling; I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from FCT for these studies. To broaden my expertise in cancer research I became a senior postdoc in Dalhousie University, Canada. I was awarded a Cancer Research Training Program postdoctoral fellowship. I was awarded a prestigious WELCOME II principal investigator contract on March 2012, co-funded by FCT and Marie Curie actions/ FP7 Program that allowed me to establish my laboratory and initiate a number of research projects. Currently I am a Principal Investigator at the Centre for Biomedical Research (CBMR), University of Algarve, supported by a prestigious FCT Investigator award from the FCT, Portugal, a 5-year career development contract. In 2017 I established a key collaboration with the Brain Tumour Research (BTR) Centre of Excellence, University of Portsmouth, U.K. that allows me to focus my research in adult high grade gliomas (aHGG) the most common and deadly type of brain tumour, currently without effective treatment. I am an author in 24 papers, published in high impact international peer review journals, including Blood (IF:15.132), Nature Communications (IF:12.353), Cancer Research (IF:9.13); with 1252 citations since 2005 and 692 citations since 2014 (5 years). I have an h-index score of 18 and an i-10 index of 20. I have written five invited reviews for International peer review journals: Blood, Cells, J Biomed Biotechnol., Int J Mol Sci.and Oxid Med Cell Longev. I have supervised a large number of PhD, MSc and BSc students. I have reviewed a range of manuscripts for Blood, Cells, Cancer Research, Int J Mol Sci. A major accomplishment was to be a key speaker in the 4th International Conference on Annexins, California, U.S.A. My research focus on understanding how cancer cells manipulate cellular systems in order to survive, proliferate and invade/metastasize. Cancer cells typically have higher levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) compared to their normal cell counterparts; this provides a proliferative advantage due to enhanced ROS-dependent pathways that activate pro-survival and pro-proliferation signaling. Nevertheless, excessive ROS can induce DNA, lipid and protein damage and ultimately lead to cell death. For this reason cancer cells up-regulate their antioxidant systems to avoid ROS overload. Many chemotherapeutics kill cancer cells through mechanisms that involve ROS. I identified the protein annexin A2 (ANXA2) as a novel redox regulatory protein that supports tumour growth and chemo-resistance. Currently I investigate the role played by this protein in the regulation of tumourigenic ROS-dependent signaling pathways. During the development of the tumour, cancer cells have to survive in a hypoxic environment due to their very rapid and uncontrolled growth in conjunction with a poor blood supply that leads to lack of nutrients and oxygen. The hypoxia response leads to the activation of multiple cellular signaling pathways involved in the regulation of respiration, metabolism, cell survival and angiogenesis. Hypoxic cancer cells exhibit higher levels of ROS compared to non-hypoxic counterparts. For this reason I am also investigating the role of ANXA2 in cancer cell hypoxia. Another interest of my research is to identify and characterize REDOX regulatory proteins whose expression is altered in tumours compared to normal matched tissues and understanding their role in cancer and in chemoresistance. Another main interest of my laboratory for many years is to investigate the role of the plasminogen receptor, ANXA2-S100A10 heterotetramer in tumour invasion and metastasis.