After my graduation in Biotechnological Engineering in 2003, I joined the Center for Neuroscience of Coimbra (CNC, Portugal) to develop my MSc thesis, where I characterized the signal transduction pathways involved in the yeast’s response to several stresses, establishing yeasts as a basic model to study the intracellular mechanisms underlying inflammatory/stress responses at the cellular level and to assist in the search and screening of new anti-inflammatory drugs (Marques et al, 2006, J. Biol. Chem. 281(34):24687 and 2 co-author publications). In 2006, I joined Prof. J. Lerma’s lab at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante (Spain), a top-leading scientist in glutamate receptors field, to perform my PhD, where I could raise kainate receptor as the key tether linking synaptic contact formation and neuronal maturation through a differential regulation of CRMP2. These results supported 2 publications in the prestigious journals J. Neuroscience (Marques et al 2013, J. Neurosci. 33:18298) awarded with “Best Paper in 2014” award by Portuguese Society for Neurosciences, and Neuron (Lerma and Marques, 2013, Neuron 80:292). In 2013, I joined RJ Rodrigues’ lab at CNC (Portugal), a recognized expert in purinergic signalling in brain development and disease, to explore the role of purinergic and glutamatergic receptors in brain disease, for my postdoctoral training, to gather expertise in brain diseases, with the prospective goal of exploring brain diseases from the perspective of brain development. The first two years I had no personal financial support, but I kept my activity by collaborating in projects led by other team members, reflected by several co-author papers. Then, I could get an international highly competitive grant from Alzheimer’s Association as a co-PI (NIRG-15-361884, US) and I got my postdoctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/107903/2015). During this period, I contributed to demonstrate that P2Y1R contributes to glutamate-induced neurodegeneration (Cell Death Dis. 9(3):297) and started to demonstrate that P2Y1R is also involved in synaptic and memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease (last author manuscript in preparation; see Marques et al, 2017 J. Neurochem. 142:208). From this post-doctoral period, I have been also exploring the striking existence of hybrid P2X/GluN receptors, supporting a novel receptor concept (first author manuscript in preparation). In 2018, I got my first grant as PI from FCT (~248000€) and in 2019 I was attributed with a Junior Researcher contract for 6 years in 2nd edition of an international competitive tender promoted by FCT. The ability to secure my personal funding and to get my first grant as a PI allowed me to start my transition towards my scientific autonomy, exploring a new line of investigation dedicated to explore brain diseases from the perspective of brain development, merging my interest/training in brain development (PhD) and disease (postdoc). The work developed during this period supports 3 last author papers, one already published (Scientific Reports 12(1):14690), one currently under review and one in preparation; one co-author publication (Cerebral Cortex 31(12):5652); and 4 review papers, one of them as last author. More recently, I got another grant as Co-PI focused on exploring the proposed conceptual breakthrough of the existence of lateralization in brain development (2022.03263.PTDC by FCT; 49,888.18€), an on-going study recently awarded with AstraZeneca Foundation Innovate Competition award.