IX BiotechHealth Annual Symposium
Resilient Science in a Changing World
Meet our speakers!
We are very happy to announce the speakers for the IX BiotechHealth Annual Symposium. Let's get to know them!
Tissue Regeneration Panel
Sílvia Ferreira
i3S
Dra. Silvia A. Ferreira is a biomedical engineer with a background in pharmaceutical sciences, nanomedicine and regenerative medicine. She is an Associate Researcher at Institute for Research and Innovation (i3S), at the Bioengineered 3D Microenvironments group. Following her PhD in 2012, at the University of Minho, she was a Research Associate at King's College London until 2018, and then joined Imperial College London, where she received a Wellcome Trust ISSF Springboard Fellowship.
Silvia's breadth of expertise from fundamental research to the clinical translation of advanced therapies enables her to bridge expertise for the discovery of innovative solutions to improve tissue regeneration.
Sandra Vieira
iBimed, University of Aveiro
Sandra Vieira has a bachelor in Biochemistry from ICBAS/UPorto and has a PhD in Biology (Molecular and Cellular Neurosciences) from the University of Aveiro. She is an Assistant Professor at University of Aveiro (UA) since 2006. Sandra teaches biomedicine topics at the Department of Medical Sciences and is the Coordinator of the Doctoral Programme in Rehabilitation Sciences. Researcher at iBiMED (Institute of Biomedicine), Sandra leads the group ‘SPARK – Cell differentiation and regeneration group’ (https://www.sparklabvieira.com), whose main research focus are strategies to promote neuro and osteo regeneration. She also coordinates the Optical Microscopy Facility of UA and the Doctoral Programme in Rehabilitation Sciences. In UA, Sandra frequently collaborates with groups of TEMA, CICECO, REQUIMTE, in biomaterials, tissue engineering and fluorescent sensors.
Diagnostic Technologies and Therapeutics Panel
Rafaela Oliveira
MIT Portugal PhD Program
Ana Rafaela Oliveira obtained a Bachelor degree in Biochemistry and a Master degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology, both from the University of Coimbra (UC, Portugal). She initiated her path in science in the Molecular and Microbial Biotechnology Group at Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC, Portugal), on a project in aspartic proteases inhibitor’s. During her master’s, she joined the Vectors and Gene Therapy Group at CNC to work in the field of Alzheimer’s disease and gene therapies. Then, she joined the Cancer Biology and Targeted Therapies Group at CNC, which involved a collaboration with the start-up TreatU and the Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology group at iMed.ULisboa, where she worked with antibodies engineering. Currently, Ana Rafaela Oliveira is a PhD student in the MIT Portugal PhD Program at the NOVA University of Lisbon (FCTUNL, Portugal) and she is doing her PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. João Peça. She is working with 3D brain organoids differentiated from dental stem cells, in order to obtain robust models to study human neurodevelopmental disorders, like autism spectrum disorders.
Rui Manuel Reis
University of Minho; Barretos Cancer Hospital
Dr. Rui is the Scientific Director of the Teaching and Research Institute; Coordinator of the Molecular Oncology Research Center; and Scientific Director of the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory at the Barretos Cancer Hospital, Barretos, SP. Brazil. He is an invited Associate Professor at the University of Minho School of Medicine (Braga, Portugal). Extraordinary Professor, at Pan African Cancer Research Institute, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Dr. Rui has a PhD in neuro-oncology, IARC (Lyon, France), and a postdoctoral fellow in cancer genomics, Free University Medical Center (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and IPATIMUP (Porto, Portugal). His area of expertise is in cancer biomarkers across distinct tumor types, and applying different methodologies, from SNP, gene mutations, copy number aberrations to gene expression alterations.
Valérie Taly
Cordeliers Research Center, University of Paris
Valérie Taly is a CNRS research director and group leader of the Translational Research And Microfluidics group within the MEPPOT team (Personalized medicine, pharmacogenomics and therapeutic optimization) located in the Cordeliers Research Center (CRC). Her group performs interdisciplinary researches aiming at developing and validating microfluidic tools for cancer research in close collaboration with clinicians and researchers in oncology. Since 2008, she has developed droplet-based digital procedures for Cancer diagnosis. Recently, her research has been dedicated to the clinical validation of droplet-based microfluidics for the discovery and non-invasive monitoring of Cancer biomarkers, as well as the development of original tools and procedures for their detection with applications in personalized medicine, cancer recurrence detection and cancer diagnostics. Dra. Valérie is co-founder of EMULSEO and METHYS DX start up companies.
Bioentrepreneurship Panel
Pedro Madureira
Immunethep
Dr. Pedro has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, and is co-founder and CSO of Immunethep, a biotech company focused on the development of immunotherapies for infectious diseases. The company’s main research interest is to understand microbial virulence mechanisms that are responsible to avert host immune system and induce disease. This research led to the development of Immunethep immunotherapies that target an immunosuppressive protein excreted by different bacteria.
Sara Rocha
iLOF
Dra. Sara is the Science Lead of iLoF and a bioengineer with a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biotechnology (ICBAS, Porto, Portugal). During the last 10 years, Sara has been dedicated to studying human diseases and finding novel biomarkers that could aid patient diagnosis and prognosis. During her R&D career, she worked in several renowned institutions, including i3S (Porto, Portugal), INL (Braga, Portugal), iMM (Lisbon, Portugal), University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), University of Freiburg (Germany), and Leiden University Medical Center (The Netherland). Her passion for science has contributed to important advances in cancer research, which were recognized through several awards. At iLoF, Sara is responsible for exploring clinical and biology oriented applications of the iLoF technology and validating the product use cases developed by the company.
Cell Therapies and Nanomedicine Panel
Joana Correia
Exogenus Therapeutics
Tissue Regeneration Panel
Dra. Joana co–founded Exogenus Therapeutics in 2015, after a successful participation in COHiTEC program for technology commercialization. Having been awarded several honors, including three entrepreneurship prizes (Everis Foundation Award, Young Entrepreneur ANJE, and Prémio Empreendedor XXI BPI/CaixaBank), she has raised €3.5M in funds for R&D, and is currently a leader in the field of EV–based therapeutics recognized internationally. With a PhD in Human Biology, she dedicated 20 years of her career to R&D in the area of human diseases and healthcare, is inventor of two patents, has several publications in high impact journals, and is invited researcher of the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC, Coimbra, Portugal). Dra. Joana is an enthusiastic entrepreneur and activist, with a creative mindset and a strong drive to solve healthcare challenges.
Mónica Fanarraga
IDIVAL Institute, University of Cantabria
Dra. Mónica is currently a Professor at the University of Cantabria and leads the Nanomedicine group at the IDIVAL Institute constituted by more than 30 scientists. She has a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Zaragoza in 1989, a PhD from the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom, 1993) and a PhD in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Cantabria (1999). During her postdoctoral training, she carried out stays at the Hubrecht Laboratorium (Holland, 1994) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL, Germany 2000). She has been a visiting scientist at the Universities of Wisconsin (USA, 1993), University of the Basque Country (1994), and University of Vigo (2021). Dra. Mónica has an H index of 27 (i10 index = 44) and more than 60 JCR publications, including articles in Nature, JCB, ACS Nano, Adv.HealthcareMat. J.Nanobiotechnology, etc., mostly as first/last/corresponding author in the fields of nanomedicine, neurobiology, and molecular biology of protein folding. She has 3 patents and has led more than 30 articles as a PI. She actively participates in pre-/post-doctoral researchers´ training and has been/is the tutor of 8 postdoctoral researchers, and 9 competitive predoctoral fellowships (inc. FPU, p-FIS, i-pFIS, and Regional FPI). Moreover, Dra. Mónica has supervised more than 20 postgraduate/master theses and 10 defended doctoral theses, 5 of them awarded the "Extraordinary Prize", and the last two the "Juan Mª Parés" Prize for the best doctoral thesis in biomedicine from the University of Cantabria.
Round Table Speakers
Maria José Oliveira
i3S; ICBAS
Maria José Oliveira graduated in Biology by the Faculty of Sciences-UPorto in 1996 and completed her PhD degree in Health and Medical Sciences at Ghent University Hospital (Belgium) in July 2004, under the supervision of Prof Marc Mareel. From 2004 to 2007, she performed her PostDoc at IPATIMUP, at the Cancer Genetics Group, under the supervision of Prof. Manuel Sobrinho-Simões and Prof. Raquel Seruca. Under the scope of Ciência2007, Maria J Oliveira initiated at INEB a new line of research, at Prof. Mário Barbosa's Group.
In 2012, she became an investigator FCT and established the Microenvironments in Cancer Cell Invasion Team. This Team demonstrated that human macrophages stimulate gastric and colorectal cancer cell invasion, proteolysis and migration. They evidenced that anti-inflammatory macrophages are more efficient in such stimulation than their pro-inflammatory counterparts. The associated signalling pathways were dissected and implicated cancer cell EGFR-Src-Akt pathway, small GTPases and Matrix metalloproteases activation. They have also demonstrated that radiotherapy modulates macrophages towards a more pro-invasive phenotype and developed biomimetic models based on decellularized colorectal cancer patients’ surgical resections. In January 2017, MJ Oliveira established the Tumour and Microenvironment Interactions Group at i3S. The Group is currently dedicated at understanding the role of the tumour microenvironment, particularly of immune cells, adipocytes and extracellular matrix components, on the modulation of cancer cell invasion and metastasis. Their research is centered in using this knowledge to design immunomodulatory therapies to counteract cancer invasion and metastasis.
Rui Henrique
IPO Porto; ICBAS
Rui Henrique was born in Porto in 1968 and received the M.D. (1992), Ph.D. (2006) and “Habilitation” (2011) from the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Porto (ICBAS-UP). After completing the residency in Anatomic Pathology at the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO Porto), obtained the degree of Specialist (2001) and Consultant (2015), becoming Director of the Department of Pathology (2006-2019), supervising the diagnostic areas of Hematopathology, Uropathology and Nephropathology, and Director of the Department of Education (2011-2019). He serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of IPO Porto since June 2019.
Academically, he is affiliated with ICBAS [Lecturer in Histology & Embriology (1991-1994), Lecturer in Pathology (2003-2006), Guest Assistant Professor (2007-2014) and Guest Full Professor (since 2014), coordinating and lecturing curricular units of the Integrated Master in Medicine (Pathology I & II, Anatomic Pathology), Integrated Master in Dental Medicine (Biopathology I & II), Master in Biochemistry (Oncobiology), Master in Bioengeneering (Oncobiology),Master in Oncology (Oncologic Pathology) and Doctoral Program in Pathology and Molecular Genetics (Pathology of Neoplasia). He is Senior Researcher of the Cancer Biology and Epigenetics Group – Research Centre of IPO Porto / Porto Comprehensive Cancer Centre, since 2008.
His diagnostic and research interests are mainly focused in Uropathology and Hematopathology, being devoted to the understanding of the role of epigenetic alterations in tumorigenesis, as well as the development of novel cancer biomarkers based on the epigenetic and genetic characterization of tumors. RH has actively participated in the identification and development of quantitative methylation assays for GSTP1, APC, RARB2 and RASSF1A gene promoters which have been incorporated into diagnostic tests, as well as the patented discovery of a gene promoter methylation test for detection of bladder cancer in urine. Since 1995, has coordinated 13 scientific projects, with external funding, as PI or Co-PI, and participated in more than 30 projects as research team member. Until now, has supervised or co-supervised 1 post-Doctoral fellow, 23 PhD students (11 already accomplished) and 58 MSc students (51 already accomplished).
He has authored or co-authored more than 300 publications in international peer-reviewed scientific periodicals, including book chapters, editorials/commentaries, reviews and original papers, with an h-index of 46 (https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=6701654252).
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João Relvas
i3S
Over the past few years, we have progressively recognized that understanding the functioning of the brain means to grasp the complexity of neuron-glia crosstalk and interactions, and that requires a much better comprehension of glia and of the mechanisms regulating their physiology in health and disease. Walking down this path has led us to unexpected findings that challenge our long-held neuron-centric view of the brain, of ageing and neurological disease. The realization that microglia can have a causative role in several neuropathologies, including Alzheimer´s disease, triggered what some authors have called a “Copernican revolution” in this area, and fueled an explosive interest in microglia and in the mechanisms controlling their physiology.
During the last few years, I have built significant expertise in studying mechanisms by which RhoGTPases and other actin-related proteins can regulate glia homeostasis, particularly myelinating glia, and more recently microglia. In addition to my expertise in the field of actin dynamics and actin-associated proteins, I also have a broad background in gene targeting, mouse transgenics, in transcriptomics and proteomics, cell signaling, and microscopy,including electron microscopy. I have been PI and Co-PI in several national and international projects financed by competitive funding; have considerable experience in managing large program project grants intended to be a vehicle for departmental support, have leadership experience acting as departmental coordinator and Neurobiology program coordinator, and more recently as vice-director of the i3S (https://www.i3s.up.pt/). I am part of the editorial board of Glia, and review for a large number of leading journals in my area of expertise. I also have extensive experience in reviewing international grants for national and international agencies and trusts; and in advising science and technology support programs during my term as a member and vice-president of the Health and Life Sciences council of the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), the Portuguese public agency that supports science, technology and innovation. These experiences made me aware of the importance of building and developing a competitive but realistic research plan, timeline, and budget in a research project. Overall, I believe that I have the background, expertise, leadership and motivation to contribute, together with the other members for the success of the proposed project.
Ana Dias
Evidenze Portugal
Ana Dias is a biologist from Univ. Coimbra and UCD (Ireland) with a master in Oncobiology developed at Ipatimup (Portugal). In 2018, Ana Dias became the first PhD graduate of BiotechHealth program, mainly developed at i3S/Ipatimup. Notably, her PhD project outcomes supported the development of an unprecedented investigator-initiated clinical trial in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
In the last ten years, Ana Dias carried out translational research projects in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams in order to tackle clinical questions in areas of Gastroenterology, Glycoimmunology and Oncobiology as well as COVID-19. She successfully gathered funded projects as PI and co-PI and she co-supervised undergraduate, master and PhD students. Ana Dias had several internationalizations in renowned institutions like RIKEN (Japan) and Karolinska Institutet/SciLifeLab (Sweden). Ana Dias has disseminated her scientific outcomes (H-index 10) in more than 20 conferences plenary talk, oral and poster communications).
Since 2021, Ana Dias is certificated in Medical Affairs and she is pursuing her career on the clinical trials field, as Clinical Research Associate at Evidenze Portugal. Her contributions in clinical investigation relies on the implementation and monitoring from real-world evidence studies to clinical trials and pioneer studies at primary health care units in Portugal.
