Bruno Freitas, a 24 year old researcher in Life Sciences, currently works at ICVS in Universidade do Minho. In 2021, he completed his bachelor's degree in Biochemistry at Universidade do Minho. In addition to his curricular duties, he was also actively engaged in academic projects and volunteering initiatives, notably as a member of the Núcleo de Estudantes de Bioquímica da Universidade do Minho (NEBQUM), where he held various roles throughout his two mandates including Vice-President of the General Assembly Table, President of the Fiscal and Jurisdictional Council and President of the Communication and Image department. Additionally, he volunteered for the Experiment@Ciência project, organizing hands-on scientific activities for children aged 6 to 10. For his bachelor’s final project, he collaborated with ICVS to study the potential of the anti-depressant Vortioxetine as therapy for Machado-Joseph neurological disease, under the supervision of Andreia Castro, achieving a final grade of 19 out of 20. He also undertook a 2-month internship at ICVS to continue the work he had developed in his project before starting a master’s program. During this time he also participated in hosting high school students in the lab as part of University of Minho’s "Verão no Campus”, demonstrating C.elegans drug screening assays. Towards his goal in a research career, in 2024, he earned his master’s degree in Health Sciences at ICVS, focusing on the problematic of resistance in malaria with the project: defining dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine resistance pathways in the malaria parasite, under the supervision of Isabel Veiga, for a final 19 out of 20 thesis grade. During this time, he tutored two medical students, and integrated several studies ongoing in the lab including two granted international research projects (ESCMID and MESCyT). This led to a fourth-authorship in a peer-reviewed article at Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease (IF=12), three poster presentations and a seminar at the annual Health Sciences Bioinformatics advanced course. With the desire to continue in malaria research, presently he is furthering his thesis work at ICVS, during which he has already delivered a second seminar at the Bioinformatics advanced course, further communicated his science through two other poster presentations, participated in The Scientist’s “What’s your story” scientific news article competition and collaborated in organizing outreach activities of the team, with the latest being for students of Colégio Teresiano under the theme “DNA technology”.