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Maria João Arez completed her bachelor’s degree in biology at Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa in 2016. She then pursued an MSc in Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, completed in 2018. During her thesis year at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular | João Lobo Antunes (iMM|JLA), she gained her first experience in DNA methylation, Genomic Imprinting, and Stem Cells. Following her master's, she was awarded a research fellowship to continue her project as a research technician, further deepening her knowledge in this field. In 2020, she undertook a four-month internship in Prof. Simon Hippenmeyer Lab at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), where she established an in vitro model of cortical neurons derived from Cdkn1c conditional knockout mouse embryonic stem cells, an experience that reinforced her decision to pursue a PhD. In 2021, she returned to Portugal to continue her research on Genomic Imprinting and Stem Cells and began her PhD in Bioengineering, specialization in Cellular Therapy and Regenerative Medicine at the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB) at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST Lisbon). Her research has yielded significant findings, leading to a first-author publication in Nature Communications in 2022, where she reported key results on Genomic Imprinting fidelity in mouse stem cells. Currently, her PhD work focuses on Genomic Imprinting in human stem cells. In the final year of her PhD, she was awarded the Prémio Maria de Sousa to support her first independent project, which aims to develop a novel reprogramming strategy to generate human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) free of imprinting defects. Throughout her PhD, Maria has actively participated in national and international conferences, presenting her work through oral presentations and posters. Notably, she recently presented her latest findings at the largest stem cell conference, where established key collaborations with researchers in the field.
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Identification

Personal identification

Full name
Maria João Arez

Citation names

  • Arez, Maria

Author identifiers

Ciência ID
F71B-A234-1AA7
ORCID iD
0000-0001-5564-3490

Email addresses

  • maria.arez@tecnico.ulisboa.pt (Professional)

Languages

Language Speaking Reading Writing Listening Peer-review
Portuguese (Mother tongue)
English Intermediate (B1) Advanced (C1) Upper intermediate (B2) Upper intermediate (B2)
Education
Degree Classification
2021/04/05 - 2024
Ongoing
 PhD in Bioengeneering - Specialty of Cellular Therapy and Regenerative Medicine (Doutoramento)
Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico Campus Taguspark, Portugal
2019/09/26 - 2019/12/31
Concluded
 Scientific Writing "Structuring and writing a hypothesis-driven research paper" (Outros)
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
 97%
2019/06/17 - 2019/07/31
Concluded
 CONGENTO Course on Laboratory Animal Science (EU, Function A) (Diploma de especialização)
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
 Aproved
2016/09/06 - 2018/10/23
Concluded
 Genética Molecular e Biomedicina (Mestrado)
Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal
"Comprehensive Evaluation of Genomic Imprinting Stability in Mouse iPSCs" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
 17
2013/09/06 - 2016/07/06
Concluded
 Biologia (Licenciatura)
Major in Biologia Molecular e Genética
Universidade de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências, Portugal
 16
Affiliation

Science

Category
Host institution 		Employer
2021/04/05 - Current Researcher (Research) Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal
Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico Campus Taguspark, Portugal
2021/01/01 - 2021/03/31 Researcher (Research) Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
2020/09/15 - 2020/12/31 Research Trainee (Research) Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Austria
Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Austria
2019/01/07 - 2020/08/31 Researcher (Research) Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
2017/09/23 - 2018/10/23 Research Trainee (Research) Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Portugal
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
2016/02/20 - 2016/07/06 Research Trainee (Research) Universidade de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências, Portugal
Universidade de Lisboa - Tec Labs Centro de Inovação, Portugal
Projects

Other

Designation Funders
2021/04/05 - Current Assessing the impact of imprinting defects in human iPSCs: Is cell therapy safe?
UI/BD/151251/2021
PhD Student Fellow
Ongoing
2019/01/07 - 2021/03/31 The aging epigenetic barriers in cell reprogramming
PTDC/BIA-MOL/29320/2017
Master Student Fellow
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Ongoing
Outputs

Publications

Conference abstract
  1. Arez, Maria. "Comprehensive Evaluation of Genomic Imprinting Stability in Mouse iPSCs". Paper presented in SPCE-TC 2019 – 11th Edition of the International Meeting of the Portuguese Society for Stem Cells & Cell Therapies, Lisbon, 2019.
    Published
Conference poster
  1. Arez, Maria; Caldas, Paulo; Sansone, Melissa; Oxley, David; da Rocha, Simão T.. "How do imprints cope during reprogramming of female and male human iPSCs?". Paper presented in ISSCR 2024 Annual Meeting, 2024.
  2. Arez, Maria; Gouveia, Maria; Raposo, Ana Cláudia; Krueger, Felix; Mupo, Annalisa; Eckersley-Maslin, Melanie; da Rocha, Simão T.. "Why is genomic imprinting dysregulated during reprogramming of iPSCs?". Paper presented in Genomic Imprinting 2023, 2023.
  3. Arez, Maria; Eckersley-Maslin, Melanie; Klobucar, Tajda; von Gilsa Lopes, João; Krueger, Felix; Mupo, Annalisa; Raposo, Ana Cláudia; et al. "Sex of donor cell and medium formulation as predictors of imprinting disruption in mouse iPSCs". Paper presented in 6th Max Planck Epigenetics Meeting 2022, 2022.
  4. Arez, Maria; Eckersley-Maslin, Melanie; Von Gilsa, João; GENDREL, ANNE-VALERIE; Raposo, Ana; Bernardes de Jesus, Bruno; da Rocha, Simão T.. "Comprehensive Evaluation of Genomic Imprinting Stability in Mouse iPSCs". Paper presented in 11th Edition of the International Meeting of the Portuguese Society for Stem Cells & Cell Therapies, 2019.
Journal article
  1. Raposo, Ana Cláudia; Caldas, Paulo; Arez, Maria; Jeremias, Joana; Barbosa, Pedro; Rui Sousa-Luís; Água, Frederico; et al. "Erosion of X-Chromosome Inactivation in female hiPSCs is heterogeneous and persists during differentiation". BioRvix (2025):
    Under revision • https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.15.585169
  2. Arez, Maria; Eckersley-Maslin, Melanie; Klobucar, Tajda; von Gilsa Lopes, João; Krueger, Felix; Mupo, Annalisa; Raposo, Ana Cláudia; et al. "Imprinting fidelity in mouse iPSCs depends on sex of donor cell and medium formulation". Nature Communications 13 1 (2022): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33013-5.
    Published • 10.1038/s41467-022-33013-5
  3. Silva, Teresa P.; Pereira, Carolina A.; Raposo, Ana Cláudia; Oliveira, Ana Rita; Arez, Maria; Cabral, Joaquim M.S.; Milagre, Inês; Carmo-Fonseca, Maria; Rocha, Simão Teixeira da. "Generation and characterization of induced pluripotent stem cells heterozygous for the Portuguese BRCA2 founder mutation". Stem Cell Research 53 (2021): 102364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2021.102364.
    Published • 10.1016/j.scr.2021.102364
  4. Silva, Teresa P.; Pereira, Carolina A.; Oliveira, Ana Rita; Raposo, Ana Cláudia; Arez, Maria; Cabral, Joaquim M.S.; Milagre, Inês; Carmo-Fonseca, Maria; da Rocha, Simão T.. "Generation and characterization of induced pluripotent stem cells from a family carrying the BRCA1 mutation c.3612delA". Stem Cell Research 52 (2021): 102242. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2021.102242.
    Published • 10.1016/j.scr.2021.102242
  5. Klobucar, Tajda; Kreibich, Elisa; Krueger, Felix; Arez, Maria; Pólvora-Brandão, Duarte; von Meyenn, Ferdinand; da Rocha, Simão Teixeira; Eckersley-Maslin, Melanie. "IMPLICON: an ultra-deep sequencing method to uncover DNA methylation at imprinted regions". Nucleic Acids Research 48 16 (2020): e92-e92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaa567.
    Published • 10.1093/nar/gkaa567
Thesis / Dissertation
  1. Arez, Maria. "Comprehensive Evaluation of Genomic Imprinting Stability in Mouse iPSCs". Master, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, 2018.
Activities

Oral presentation

Presentation title Event name
Host (Event location)
2022/03/10 Systematic analysis of imprinting defects in murine iPSCs 12th International Meeting of the Portuguese Society for Stem Cells and Cell Therapies
SPCE-TC (Braga, Portugal)

Event participation

Activity description
Type of event 		Event name
Institution / Organization
2025/01/24 - 2025/01/24 Workshop on LaTeX
Workshop
 Workshop of LaTeX
Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
2024/04/23 - 2024/04/23 Workshop on "How to design a graphical abstract"
Workshop
 How to design a graphical abstract
Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
2024/04/15 - 2024/04/16 Course on Scientific Communication. Included 56h of theoretical and practical classes.
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
2019/09/26 - 2019/12/31 Scientific Writing Course. I wrote a full hypothesis-driven research paper according to the IMRAD (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion) format. I also learnt the steps involved in producing and publishing a research paper and how to use the language (English) in order to produce an article that effectively conveys its message.
Other
 Scientific Writing “Structuring and writing a hypothesis-driven research paper”
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
2019/12/02 - 2019/12/05 EMBL Course: Enzymatic Methyl-seq: Bisulfite-Free Methylation Analysis. Prepared and analysed "bisulfite-free" methylome libraries for Illumina sequencing using a novel enzymatic approach to detect 5-methyl cytosines that results in longer reads and higher coverage of genomic features at lower minimum coverage thresholds when compared to Illumina bisulfite libraries.
Other
 EMBL Course: Enzymatic Methyl-seq: Bisulfite-Free Methylation Analysis
EMBL Heidelberg Genome Biology, Germany
2019/06/17 - 2019/07/31 CONGENTO Course on Laboratory Animal Science. Included 20h of theoretical course in laboratory animal science as recommended by FELASA (category B) which was complemented with pratical training of rodents and zebrafish.
Other
 CONGENTO Course on Laboratory Animal Science (EU, Function A)
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal

Course / Discipline taught

Academic session Degree Subject (Type) Institution / Organization
2024/03/01 - 2024/05/01 Engenharia de Células e Tecidos. Teaching of practical classes Engenharia de Células e Tecidos (Licenciatura) Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal

Mentoring / Tutoring

Topic Student name
2024/03/12 - 2024/07/12 Laboratorial Supervision João Severino
2023/02/01 - 2023/07/28 Laboratorial Supervision Melissa Sansone
2019/05/07 - 2019/08/07 Laboratorial Supervision Tajda Klobucar
2018/07/10 - 2018/08/10 Techniques teaching Patrícia Quelhas
Distinctions

Award

2024 Prémio Maria de Sousa Award
Fundação Bial, Portugal

Ordem dos Médicos, Portugal