Ana Spencer (921A-A343-33C6)

Curriculum Vitae

Ana Spencer

Ana Spencer obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at the Faculty of Science and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal (2015), and her Master’s degree in Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine at the Faculty of Science and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal (2017). As an undergraduate student, Ana enrolled in some research projects. In 2015, she joined the Research Center in Human Molecular Genetics (CIGMH), Lisbon, Portugal, where she developed her final BSc project. Later, in 2016, she did her master's thesis in the nanoBiomaterials for Targeted Therapies group at i3S. Her thesis was focused on the development of new fully biodegradable dendrimers capable of carrying nucleic acids into cells. Ana continued her work in this group and currently, she is a Ph.D. student (Ph.D. program in Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal) under the supervision of Dr. Ana Paula Pêgo and Dr.Victoria Leiro. Ana is now focused on the development of a new neuroregenerative gene therapy for spinal cord injury, using nanomaterials as targeted delivery systems. The expertise gained from working with biomaterials, nanoparticles, gene therapy, protein production, in vitro and primary cultures, ex vivo models, and microfluidic devices, allowed the publication of 3 peer-reviewed articles, various communications, and also participation in external collaborations.

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Identification

Personal identification

Full name: Ana Spencer

Citation names

Spencer, Ana

Author identifiers

Ciência ID: 921A-A343-33C6
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8610-266X

Languages

Language	Speaking	Reading	Writing	Listening
Portuguese	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)
English	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)	Advanced (C1)
French	Beginner (A1)	Beginner (A1)	Beginner (A1)	Beginner (A1)

Education

	Degree	Classification
2019/01 - 2022/12 Ongoing	Biomedical Engineering (Doutoramento) Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
2019/09 - 2021/11 Concluded	Economics and Management of Innovation (Mestrado) Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Economia, Portugal
2021/05 - 2021/05 Concluded	FELASA A, B and D (Outros) Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2021/01 - 2021/05 Attended	Research Ethics & Research Integrity (Outros) Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2020/02/19 - 2020/03/04 Attended	Workshop Introduction to information design for life sciences (Outros) Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2019/11/06 - 2019/11/08 Concluded	Course Atomic Force Microscopy applied to Life Sciences (Outros) Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2019/10/07 - 2019/10/10 Concluded	Biomaterials and advanced physical techniques for regenerative cardiology and neurology (Outros) Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, Greece
2015 - 2017 Concluded	Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine (Mestrado) Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal "New Fully Biodegradable PEG-Dendrimers: Synthesis and evaluation as siRNA vectors" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	17
2012 - 2015 Concluded	Biochemistry (Licenciatura) Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal "Detection of fusion transcripts via spectral coding systems for the diagnosis of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)

Affiliation

Science

	Category Host institution	Employer
2024/01/01 - Current	Researcher (Research)	Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal

2018/03/01 - 2018/12/31	Researcher (Research)	Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal

Others

	Category Host institution	Employer
2019/01/01 - Current	PhD student	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal
	Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal (...)
2016/09/01 - 2018/02/28	Research Trainee - NanoBiomaterials for Targeted Therapies Group	Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal

2015/01/01 - 2015/06/30	Research Trainee - Centre for Research in Human Molecular Genetics	Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal

Projects

Grant

	Designation	Funders
2022/01/01 - Current	JumpIN - HiJacking the peripheral neurons retrograde trafficking machinery to deliver neUroprotective Molecules to sPinal cord InterNeurons PTDC/BTM-MAT/4156/2021 PhD Student Fellow Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal	Ongoing
2019 - Current	SIRNAC - Novel siRNA therapies against metastatic colorectal cancer NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-033399 Research Fellow	Concluded
2018/03 - 2018/09	NanoProtetor - nanoTerapias neuroprotetoras avançadas para o tratamento de acidentes vasculares cerebrais FIS-2015-01_CCV_20150630-88 Research Fellow Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal	Infarmed Autoridade Nacional do Medicamento e Produtos de Saúde IP Concluded

Contract

	Designation	Funders
2024/01/01 - 2024/06/30	Institute for Health and Bioeconomy LA/P/0140/2020 10.54499/LA/P/0140/2020 Research Fellow Associação do Instituto Superior Técnico para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento, Portugal Universidade de Lisboa Instituto de Bioengenharia e Biociências, Portugal Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal INESC Microsistemas e Nanotecnologias, Portugal Rede de Química e Tecnologia Laboratório Associado para a Química Verde, Portugal Associação para a Inovação e Desenvolvimento da FCT, Portugal Unidade de Ciências Biomoleculares Aplicadas, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Ongoing
2020/01/01 - 2023/12/31	Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit UIDP/04378/2020 10.54499/UIDP/04378/2020 Research Fellow Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal Unidade de Ciências Biomoleculares Aplicadas, Portugal Rede de Química e Tecnologia Laboratório Associado para a Química Verde, Portugal Associação para a Inovação e Desenvolvimento da FCT, Portugal Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Tecnologias e Agroambiente, Portugal Universidade do Porto, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Concluded
2020/01/01 - 2023/12/31	Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit UIDP/04378/2020 10.54499/UIDP/04378/2020 Research Fellow Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal Unidade de Ciências Biomoleculares Aplicadas, Portugal Rede de Química e Tecnologia Laboratório Associado para a Química Verde, Portugal Associação para a Inovação e Desenvolvimento da FCT, Portugal Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Tecnologias e Agroambiente, Portugal Universidade do Porto, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Concluded
2019/07 - 2020/03	BaiTS - Biodegradable dendrimers for Targeted neuroprotective therapies in Stroke 142176 Research Fellow Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Concluded

Other

	Designation	Funders
2020/09 - 2021/06	Dissecting the actin cytoskeleton as novel therapeutic target in familial amyloid polyneuropathy PTDC/MED-NEU/28336/2017 PhD Student Fellow	Concluded

Outputs

Publications

Conference poster

"Microfluidics for the assessment of nanoparticle intracellular trafficking in neurons". Paper presented in FENS Forum 2022, 2022.
"Designing a new targeted fully biodegradable dendrimer for delivery of nucleic acids to neuronal cells". Paper presented in XVII Congresso da Sociedade Portuguesa de Neurociências, 2021.
"Looking for a neuro-solution: Designing a new targeted vector for nucleic acid delivery to neuronal cells". Paper presented in 4th PhDay: Break borders and build opportunities, 2021.
"Dendrivolution: designing a new targeted dendrimer for nucleic acid delivery to neuronal cells". Paper presented in 1st Symposium on Oligonucleotide Technologies and Therapeutics@Portugal – OTP2021, 2021.
Spencer, Ana; Leiro, Victoria; Pêgo, Ana. "Designing a new fully biodegradable nanovector for neurotargeted delivery". Paper presented in 22nd EMBL PhD Symposium: The Roaring 20s: A New Decade for Life Sciences, 2020.
Spencer, Ana. "Designing a new targeted fully biodegradable dendrimer for delivery of nucleic acids to neuronal cells". Paper presented in 11th World Biomaterials Congress, 2020.
Spencer, Ana. "The biological assessment of an innovative family of fully biodegradable dendrimers as siRNA delivery vectors". Paper presented in 8th i3S Annual Meeting, 2019.
Spencer, Ana. "Novel fully biodegradable PEG-dendrimers: Synthesis and function as efficient vehicles of siRNA to neuronal cells". Paper presented in 8th i3S Annual Meeting, 2019.
Spencer, Ana. "Innovative fully biodegradable PEG-dendritic block copolymers: biological assessment as siRNA delivery vectors". Paper presented in 11th International Dendrimer Symposium, 2019.
Spencer, Ana. "Exploring new fully biodegradable PEG-dendrimers as siRNA vectors". Paper presented in 7th i3S Annual Meeting, 2018.
Spencer, Ana. "New fully biodegradable PEG-dendrimers: promising non-viral delivery vectors for siRNA". Paper presented in 6th IEEE Portuguese Meeting on Bioengineering, 2018.

Journal article

Spencer, Ana Patrícia; Leiro, Victoria; Pêgo, Ana Paula. "Unravelling the interactions of biodegradable dendritic nucleic acid carriers and neural cells". Biomaterials Science 11 4 (2023): 1499-1516. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d2bm01114j.
10.1039/d2bm01114j
Leiro, Victoria; Spencer, Ana Patrícia; Magalhães, Natália; Pêgo, Ana Paula. "Versatile fully biodegradable dendritic nanotherapeutics". Biomaterials 281 (2022): 121356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2021.121356.
Published • 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2021.121356
Huw Summers; Carla P. Gomes; Aida Varela-Moreira; AP Spencer; Maria Gomez Lazaro; Ana P. Pêgo; Paul Rees. "Data-Driven Modeling of the Cellular Pharmacokinetics of Degradable Chitosan-Based Nanoparticles". Nanomaterials (2021): https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/11/10/2606.
10.3390/nano11102606
Ana Spencer; Marília Torrado; Beatriz Custódio; Sara C. Silva-Reis; Santos SD; Victoria Leiro; Ana Paula Pêgo. "Breaking Barriers: Bioinspired Strategies for Targeted Neuronal Delivery to the Central Nervous System". Pharmaceutics (2020): https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4923/12/2/192.
10.3390/pharmaceutics12020192
Spencer, Ana. "Fine tuning neuronal targeting of nanoparticles by adjusting the ligand grafting density and combining PEG spacers of different length". Acta Biomaterialia (2018): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2018.08.005.
10.1016/j.actbio.2018.08.005
Leiro, V.; Garcia, J.P.; Moreno, P.M.D.; Spencer, A.P.; Fernandez-Villamarin, M.; Riguera, R.; Fernandez-Megia, E.; Paula Pêgo, A.. "Biodegradable PEG-dendritic block copolymers: Synthesis and biofunctionality assessment as vectors of siRNA". Journal of Materials Chemistry B 5 25 (2017): 4901-4917. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85021637380&partnerID=MN8TOARS.
10.1039/c7tb00279c

Activities

Oral presentation

	Presentation title	Event name Host (Event location)
2021/09	Designing a new targeted dendritic nanosystem for nucleic acid delivery to neuronal cells: the combination of fully biodegradable dendrimers and proteins	31st Conference of the European Society of Biomaterials (ESB2021)
2021/06	Designing a new neurotargeted dendritic nanoparticle for nucleic acid delivery	4th Doctoral Congress in Engineering - DCE21 (virtual) FEUP
2020/12	Fully biodegradable peg-dendrimers as efficient carriers for single and dual siRNA delivery	World Biomaterials Congress 2020 (Glasgow, United Kingdom)
2020/11	Designing a new fully biodegradable dendritic nanosystem for targeted neuronal delivery	3rd PhDay \| Back to the Future Intituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto
2019/09	A novel family of fully biodegradable PEG-dendrimers as efficient carriers for gene therapy	30th Annual Conference of the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB2019) (Dresden, Germany)
2019/07	From peripheral to central nervous system: a journey towards targeted neural delivery	11th International Dendrimer Symposium (Madeira, Portugal)
2019/07	New fully biodegradable PEG-dendritic block copolymers: from synthesis to application as efficient nanocarriers of siRNA	11th International Dendrimer Symposium (Funchal, Portugal)
2019/06	Biodegradable dendrimer as nucleic acid delivery vector for neuronal cells	3rd Doctoral Congress in Engineering
2019/06	Nano-enabled Systems for Nucleic Acid Delivery to the Nervous System	6th NanoToday Conference (Lisbon, Portugal)
2019/03	New Fully Biodegradable Dendrimers: Promising delivery vectors for gene therapy	VII AEICBAS Biomedical Congress (Porto, Portugal)
2019/03	New Fully Biodegradable Dendrimers as delivery vectors for gene therapy	VII ABC Biomedical Congress (Porto, Portugal)
2019	From Peripheral to Central Nervous System: A Journey Towards Targeted Neuronal Delivery	IDS11 - 11th International Dendrimer Symposium (Funchal, Portugal)
2018/11	Fully biodegradable PEG-dendrimers for nucleic acid delivery	MAD-NANO18 Madeira International Conference, Emerging trends and future of Nanomaterials for Human Health, (Madeira, Portugal)
2018/11	Fully Biodegradable PEG-Dendrimers: Synthesis and “click” functionalization to Act as Nucleic Acid Vectors	i3S annual meeting (Póvoa do Varzim, Portugal)
2018/06	Fully Biodegradability of PEG-Dendritic Block Copolymers towards an efficient siRNA Delivery	6th International Symposium on Biomedical Applications of Dendrimers (Urbino, Italy)
2018/05	On the Fully Biodegradability of PEG-Dendrimers for siRNA Delivery	12th International Symposium on Polymer Therapeutics: From Laboratory to Clinical Practice, (Valencia, Spain)
2018	Novel Fully Biodegradable PEG-dendrimers: promising carriers to siRNA delivery	to siRNA delivery”. Encontro de Investigação Jovem da Universidade do Porto 2018 (Porto, Portugal)
2017/11	Exploring new fully biodegradable PEG-dendrimers as siRNA vectors	6th i3S Annual Meeting (Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal)
2017/02	New Biodegradable Dendrimers as siRNA vectors targeted to the nervous system	Intermediate Congress of the Annual Dissertations of the Departments of Chemistry and Life Sciences 2017 (Lisboa, Portugal)

Supervision

	Thesis Title Role	Degree Subject (Type) Institution / Organization
2021/01 - Current	Fully degradable dendrimers for targeted siRNA delivery to spinal cord injury Co-supervisor	Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal

Event participation

	Activity description Type of event	Event name Institution / Organization
2018 - 2018	7th i3S Annual Meeting Meeting	7th i3S Annual Meeting Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2018 - 2018	V Biotech Health Annual Symposium Symposium	V Biotech Health Annual Symposium Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2017 - 2017	6th i3S Annual Meeting Meeting	6th i3S Annual Meeting Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2016 - 2016	5th i3S Annual Meeting Meeting	5th i3S Annual Meeting Universidade do Porto Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Portugal
2015 - 2015	TEDxFCTUNL Conference	TEDxFCTUNL Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal
2014/04 - 2014/04	VII National Meeting of Biochemistry Students Meeting	VII National Meeting of Biochemistry Students Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal

Committee member

	Activity description Role	Institution / Organization
2016 - 2019	Member of the Pedagogical Council of the Department of Life Sciences Member	Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal
2015/10 - 2016/09	Effective member of the Scientific Committee of the Master in Molecular Geneticsand Biomedicine Member	Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal

Mentoring / Tutoring

	Topic	Student name
2020/01 - 2020/09		Maria Gouveia
2018/09 - 2019/09		Luís Francisco
2017/09 - 2018/12		Cristiana Sousa
2017/10 - 2017/12		Giancarlo Grano

Distinctions

Award

2021	SPN21 Scholarship (Sociedade Portuguesa de Neurociências) Sociedade Portuguesa de Neurociências, Portugal
2021	Best oral communication in the Symposium on Biomedical Engineering (DCE21) Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
2019	4th prize of Scientific Oral Competition of the VII AEICBAS Biomedical Congress Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Portugal
2011	Student Award of Merit

Other distinction

2019	Granted PhD scholarship “DUAL - Double targeted neuronal nucleic acid vectors based on fully biodegradable dendrimers: an innovative treatment for spinal cord injury” Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal