Ricardo Calhelha (RC), Assistant Researcher at the Mountain Research Center (CIMO-IPB), has a degree in Biotechnological Engineering obtained at Instituto Politécnico de Bragança in 2003. After completing his PhD in Sciences, speciality in Chemistry ( 2010), in which he dedicated himself to the synthesis of new heterocyclic compounds with potential biological activity,he has focused his research on the culture of animal cells (six years of post-doctoral experience and two as a researcher). At the Mountain Research Center (CIMO), RC has implemented several techniques using animal cell culture. His work was innovative at this institution, where he supervised the implantation of the animal cell culture laboratory and all the equipment in it. Thus, it was possible to establish several bioassays that complemented the work of the research group in which RC is inserted (BioChemCore, http://esa.ipb.pt/biochemcore/). Initially, RC implemented screening assays to evaluate the cytotoxic activity of natural extracts and synthetic compounds. He also established several human tumor cell lines (eg HeLa, HepG2, MCF7, HCT15 and NCI-H460), in which hundreds of extracts/compounds were tested using the Sulforrodamine B method. With the need to assess the degree of toxicity of samples under study, and knowing that primary cell cultures are very expensive, RC has also implemented a method to obtain primary cell cultures from pig liver, thus allowing to evaluate the hepatotoxicity of the extracts/compounds. In addition, RC also explored methods of co-culturing human tumor lines with human erythrocytes to assess the increased stiffness of the erythrocyte membrane in the presence of tumor cells. In addition to cytotoxicity assays, RC has also established a method for assessing the anti-inflammatory activity of extracts/compounds using a mouse macrophage cell line. Currently, RC has been dedicated to the implementation of methods of antioxidant activity in cell lines andin the application of flow cytometry techniques in the culture of animal cells. RC is also dedicated to the implementation and optimization of innovative protocols to assess not only the levels of apoptosis induced by the samples, but also their interference in the cell cycle, seeking to elucidate the possible mechanisms of action involved. RC has participated in several research projects funded by various institutions, such as FCT and PRODER, in which he was responsable for the cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory effects. It should be noted that most of the projects are collaborations between CIMO and enterprises of the agrifood sector. RC has collaborated with research groups from other countries, namely Spain, Serbia, Holland, Brazil, Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, among others. From his extensive research activity, RC has published more than 280 articles in international scientific journals indexed to ISI (index H: 46), an international patent, a book chapter and more than 200 participations in scientific events, also as an invited speaker. RC is also a member of the editorial board of Molecules journal, a high impact factor (3.267) journal in the field of his main interests. RC was involved in the organization of the first animal cell culture workshop (2012), which has been repeated annually. RC supervised 6 master thesis and about 20 graduations students and is now supervising master (2), PhD (6) and graduation students (4). In addition, he accompanied several doctoral, masters, undergraduate and technological specialization students at the animal cell culture laboratory, where they developed part of their thesis works. He has also participated in master's and doctoral juris. RC also acts as a referee, reviewing several manuscripts for high impact factor journals. Finnaly, RC is also responsable for teaching several degree and master courses related with biological activities and bioassays.