Bio
Dr. Fábio Fernandes (ORCID 0000-0001-9112-265X) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Bioengineering of Instituto Superior Técnico (DBE/IST). He is also a member of the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB). He is interested in the production of hybrid vesicles combining different membrane types to achieve added therapeutic functionality. His group has recently focused on the manipulation of extracellular vesicles for therapeutic purposes.

Talk
Introducing the topic “Where Are We Now and Where Is Antimicrobial Therapy Headed?”

Bio
Dr. Sandra Pinto (ORCID 0000-0002-3205-9459) has a PhD in Chemistry. She is an Assistant Researcher at iBB. Her research is mostly focused on medicinal chemistry, biophysics, and microbiology. In the last five years, she has been focused on the development of microscopy methodologies to characterize microbial biofilms and on innovative therapies for drug-resistant infectious diseases. Through this work, she and other collaborators identified core–shell polycationic polyurea dendrimers as new synthetic mimics of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) with outstanding broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity. These nanoparticles were tolerated well by human cells and showed sub-μM activity against multi-drug-resistant bacteria in their planktonic form. This work recently lead to several oral presentations, publications in high-impact journals, and the publication of national and international patents.

Talk
The Key Role of Liposomes as Delivery Systems for the Management of Infectious Diseases

Bio
Dr Maria Manuela Gaspar (ORCID 0000-0001-6814-7226) completed her PhD in 2005 in Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and in 2007/2008 completed her post-doctoral studies at Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. She is a Researcher at the Research Institute for Medicines in the Faculty of Pharmacy, Universidade de Lisboa. Her area of research includes the design, characterization, and in vitro evaluation of appropriated delivery systems, of a lipid or polymeric nature, loaded with already commercialized or newly synthesized antibiotics. She is also interested in the establishment of infectious and cancer murine models, such as M. avium, M. tuberculosis, leishmania, MRSA, melanoma, and colon cancer, for validating the therapeutic effect of developed lipid-based systems. She is the co-author of numerous patents, papers in peer-reviewed journals, and book chapters. SCOPUS ID 15834627800 | CIÊNCIA ID 3A10-0732-13F5

Talk
Polyurea Pharmadendrimers: The Next Generation of Antimicrobials

Bio
Dr Vasco Bonifácio (ORCID 0000-0003-2349-8473) is a Professor of Biomaterials and Scientific Coordinator of the Master in Pharmaceutical Technology at IST. He obtained his PhD in Organic Chemistry from FCT-UNL and post-doc in Molecular Electronics from Institüt fur Polymertechnologie (Germany). He was a Visiting Scientist at MIT (USA) and the University of Bordeaux (France). Also, he was a Visiting Professor at Faculdad de Medicina, University Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research (Germany). Dr Vasco Bonifácio was awarded the Advanced Materials Scientist Medal (2017), the Multiple Myeloma Award (2019), and the RETSCH Scientific Challenge – Enabling progress with ball mils (2024). He was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award six times at IST. Additionally, he is the President of the Lisbon Delegation of the Portuguese Chemical Society. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Frontiers Nanobiotechnology (Frontiers), QUÍMICA (Portuguese Chemical Society), and is a Guest Editor at MDPI. In 2023, he was listed in the top 2% most cited scientists in the world, a ranking elaborated by the Sandford University. More at www.bonifacio.ws.

Talk
How RNA Regulators Influence Biofilm Formation

Bio
Dr. Vânia Pobre (ORCID 0000-0002-4339-8472) has a PhD in Molecular Biology. She is currently a senior researcher at ITQB NOVA in the Control of Gene Expression Group. During her postdoctoral work, she has dedicated most of her efforts to the field of RNA bioinformatics with a strong focus on transcriptomics and big data analysis. She has applied the advantage of her dual knowledge of being both an experimental and a computational biologist to study the roles of exoribonucleases and small non-coding RNAs in the control of gene expression. She has supervised the work of Masters and PhD students as well as other internships in the lab. She also taught classes in the MolBioS PhD program and in the Medical Microbiology Master programs at ITQB NOVA since 2012. She has also participated in teaching in ERASMUS programs abroad. She also established several national and international collaborations that have allowed her to expand her field of knowledge. In 2021, she was also elected as the representative of the ITQB NOVA biology division for the ITQB/iBET postdoctoral association (PDA). Since 2022 she has also been part of Bioda.pt (Portuguese ELIXIR node).