Catarina Custódio holds a BSc degree in Applied Chemistry from Faculty of Science and Technology of New University of Lisbon and a Doctoral Degree in Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells from University of Minho in a collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany (2013). In 2014 she was awarded with a FCT Post-doctoral grant to develop a project on the patterning of chitosan hydrogels towards controlling cellular function to enhance endogenous cardiac repair. Currently, she is an Assistant Researcher (CEEC) and Principal Investigator of a national R&D project at CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, University of Aveiro. Her main scientific interests are on novel biomaterials for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Her research has a strong translational focus with the main goal of manipulating microenvironments that cells interact with, to facilitate cell assembly and build functional tissue for customized therapies with a particular attention on cardiovascular disease. So far, she has published 41 peer-reviewed papers in high impact international journals, summing more than 1500 citations and an h-index 22 (Scopus at 01/2024). She has been actively involved in writing competitive international and national funding proposals and and has been an ad-hoc reviewer for top-quality international journals. Part of her work is focused in product development and translational research to engineer innovative 3D platforms for cell culture. She is a co-founder of the startup Metatissue (2018). The core competency of the company lies in the design and development of novel soft materials for 3D cell culture.