I am a young team leader with a joint affiliation with the Centre for Integrative Biology (CBI) - Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCD) and Centro de Cardiologia da Universidade de Lisboa (CCUL). In 2008 as an undergrad student, I developed a protocol for the use of zebrafish caudal fin regeneration to screen for chemical compounds regulating de novo bone formation. This project led to a collaboration with multiple laboratories and Technopage SA (http://www.technophage.pt/) resulting in a patent filling and creation of the business unit Technozeb (of which I am a founding and scientific advisory board member). In 2012 I completed a joint PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at UGent/UAlg (Belgium/Portugal) where I worked on zebrafish bone development. I then moved to the Centre for Chronic Diseases from NOVA Medical School (Lisbon, Portugal) for a first postdoctoral project on the mechanisms of bone regeneration also in zebrafish. In 2016 I joined Didier Stainier's Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research (Germany) as a Postdoctoral Researcher where I studied cardiac valve development and regeneration. There, I published a new model for cardiac valve regeneration highlighting the role of TGF-ß signaling in valve cell recruitment and new tissue formation (Bensimon-Brito et al., Dev Cell) relevant for the improvement of cardiac valve implants. I also had the chance of leading two additional projects on 1) cardiac valve development using live imaging at single-cell resolution which resulted in a publication as last author (Gunawan et al., Circ Res) and 2) adaptation of pre-clinical imaging techniques to the adult zebrafish, including Echocardiography, MRI and Micro-CT, recently published in Cardiovascular Research (Bensimon-Brito & Boezio et al., Cardiov Res). Putting together my background in bone biology and cardiovascular research I aim to understand the mechanisms of cardiovascular calcification. This proposal was recently funded by the ATIP-Avenir Program, INSERM & CNRS (France) and will support the research at the MMG Center. Complementary, I will take advantage of the cardiac valve regeneration model developed during my last postdoctoral project to understand the important problematic on chronic inflammation in valve implants. This project will be pursued at the CCUL with the support of Dr. Inês Cristo, already hired as a postdoctoral researcher with strong management and technical skills. We will take advantage of relevant core facilities and a highly clinical/translational environment. The joint affiliation is being managed with absolute financial segregation to avoid any possible conflicts. So far, I supervised 3 interns, 1 master student and 3 PhD students. Since 2013, I lectured in: 1) 4 FELASA courses for Category B, 2) 2 seminars for Bachelor's degrees, and 3) 4 seminars in master courses. I joined as a main Trainer in two Workshops on Zebrafish Tools for the Screening of Osteogenic Compounds, one as part of the EuroSoftCalcNet COST Action. Regarding prizes and honors, I was offered the prestigious Pexieder Award for the best oral presentation at the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Cardiology and was recently awarded the highly disputed ATIP-Avenir and ERC Starting Grants. In 2012 I received the First prize based on knowledge transfer with a project on the field of histology. I was the recipient of a PhD fellowship from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and 2 travel grants namely from the Company of Biologists.