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My main goal is to use structural biology to characterize drug-target complexes and contribute to the design of safer and more efficient drugs.
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We focus on X-ray crystallography and Small Anlge X-ray Scattering for the structural determination of protein-ligand complexes, characterization of conformational changes upon ligand binding, and integrate general biophysical techniques to determine affinity (DLS, ITC, SPR). |
---- Scientific Journey ----
I finished my undergraduate studies in 2001 in Chemistry and completed my PhD in 2006 in Protein Crystallography at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. In 2007 I began a post-doc, which was followed by a 5-year contract as Assistant Researcher (Ciência2008), starting in 2009, in the same University.In 2012 I initiated my independent work as PI of two financed projects from the Portuguese Science Foundation – reviewed by an international panel and with a ca 12% rate of success.In 2014 I obtained an independent position – Investigador FCT, reviewed by an international panel and with a 14% rate of success – granted by the Portuguese Science Foundation, to develop my research project at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.In 2014, I was the awardee of the Clara Immerwahr Award 2014 of the Cluster of Excellence UniCat, of the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, promoting women in science. The award consisted of a 15 000 euros prize money and 4 months stay in the lab of Prof. Silke Leimkühler at the University of Potsdam, Germany. In 2014 I applied to a project of the Portuguese Science Foundation as PI which was recommended for funding, starting in 2016.
The main focus of my research is the structural characterization of drug-target complexes, namely organometallic molecules with biological activity.I have also been involved in the study of molybdenum enzymes and their chaperones, transporters and related enzymatic mechanisms.
Since 2011, I completed the supervision of 7 undergraduate students (5 of which continued as MSc students) 8 MSc students (5 of which pursued PhD studies); 1 PhD student (who is currently a Postdoc fellow at IST-ULisboa); 3 Postdocs (currently postdoc fellows or holding permanent positions at renowned research institutes: IBET and ITQB-NOVA, Portugal). My team consists of 10 people working full time: 2 Postdocs; 3 PhD’s (1 under co-supervision); 1 research assistant; 4 MSc’s.