People
Patricia Reed, Post doctoral fellow
Patricia graduated from Glasgow University with a BSc (hons) in Microbiology before obtaining her PhD in 2006 from the University of Durham. Her current research is focused on the cell wall synthetic machinery of S. aureus, the localization of the proteins involved in this process and their roles in antibiotic resistance.
Simon Schäper, Post doctoral fellow
Simon graduated from the University of Bielefeld in 2013 with a MSc in Genome Based Systems Biology. He obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Marburg in 2017 for his work on second messenger signaling in plant-symbiotic bacteria. After that, he joined the lab where his current research efforts focus on the dynamics of cell division proteins and cell cycle regulatory mechanisms in Staphylococcus aureus.
Helena Veiga, Post doctoral fellow
Helena graduated in Biochemistry from the Faculdade de Ciências Universidade do Porto and gained her PhD in 2012 from ITQB. She is currently focusing her research on the mechanisms of cell division and chromosome segregation in Staphylococcus aureus spherical cells.
Nils Meiresonne, Post doctoral fellow
Nils obtained his doctorate from the University of Amsterdam in 2019. At the Bacterial Cell Biology, he is using Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy and Förster Resonance Energy Transfer to study the interaction dynamics of the protein complexes that govern bacterial cell division and cell wall synthesis as a function of the cell cycle.
Adrián Izquierdo Martinez, Post doctoral fellow
Adrián graduated in 2014 with a BSc. in Biotechnology from the Universidad de Murcia, Spain and then completed a MSc. in Genetics and Cell Biology from a joint programme between the UCM, UAM and UAH (Madrid). Afterwards, he moved to Marburg, Germany, where he investigated peptidoglycan autolysin coordination in Caulobacter crescentus and obtained his doctoral degree (2020). His current research is focused on the regulation of cell cycle and chromosome organization dynamics in S. aureus.
Moritz Sorg, PhD student
Moritz graduated in Biochemistry from the 'Freie Universitaet' Berlin, Germany. His main research interests are focused on the chromosome segregation of Staphylococcus aureus.
Andreia Duarte, PhD student
Andreia graduated in Cell and Molecular Biology from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. She joined the Lab as a Masters student in Applied Microbiology from Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa adn is currently doing her PhD. Her main scientific interests are to study the role of phosphorylation in the regulation of cell wall synthesis, cell division, as well as in antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus.
Sara Costa, PhD student (main supervisor Zach Hensel, ITQB)
Sara graduated in Biology (Molecular Biology and Genetics) from Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon in 2013 and then attended a Masters program in Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine at Faculty of Science and Technology at NOVA University Lisbon. Her main scientific interest is to study the role of gene expression regulation in controlling cell division in Staphylococcus aureus.
Leonor Marques, PhD Student
Leonor graduated in Biology - Molecular Biology and Genetics from Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa. She then completed a master degree in Microbiology at Copenhagen University. Her main research interests are focused on understand the regulatory mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus autolysins.
António Brito, PhD Student (co-supervised by Ricardo Henriques, IGC)
António graduated in Chemical Engineering (MSc) from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. He started his PhD in the lab in 2022, under the co-supervision of Ricardo Henriques (IGC). His current research is focused on the development of custom image analysis tools to analyse cocci cells in images obtained by both epifluorescence and super-resolution microscopy.
Dominik Alwardt, PhD Student
Dominik graduated with a MSc. in Molecular Biology and Evolution from Kiel University, Germany, in 2021, where he studied the spatiotemporal localization of cell cycle associated proteins in Corynebacterium glutamicum. The main goal of his current PhD project is to identify novel cell cycle regulators in Staphylococcus aureus, using the Lisbon CRISPRi mutant library.
FORMER MEMBERS
Pedro Fernandes, PhD student
Pedro graduated in Biology - Molecular Biology and Genetics from Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa and then attended a Masters program in Applied Microbiology, at the same institution. During his PhD in the BCB lab he focused on the cell cy le of S. aureus as well as in the response of this pathogen to cell wall stress caused by cell wall targetting antibiotics. He then started a post-doc with Pedro M Pereira, ITQB.
Bruno Saraiva, PhD student
Bruno graduated in Biochemistry from Universidade de Aveiro and then did a Masters in Biochemistry - Biomolecular Methods in the same institution. While in the BCB lab, he developed multiple image analysis tools, including for the automatic classification of the cell cycle stage of S. aureus cells. After completing his PhD, he joined the group of Ricardo Henriques, IGC, for a post-doc.
Mário Ferreira, Post doctoral fellow
Mário graduated in Applied Chemistry (2007) at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia - NOVA. He then completed a Master's degree in Biotechnology (2009) and obtained his PhD degree in Biology in 2016, both at the same institution. In the lab, he studied mechanisms of localization of cell division proteins in Staphylococcus aureus. He moved to the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr. Ricardo Jorge.
Pedro Matos Pereira, Research Associate
Pedro holds a BSc on Applied Chemistry - Biotechnology (2006) from FCT-NOVA, a Master’s in biotechnology (2007) and a PhD degree in Cell Biology (2013) from ITQB-NOVA. From 2014 to 2019 Pedro was a Research Associate at the MRC-LMCB from University College London, a University partner at the Francis Crick Institute in London. Pedro is interested in microbiology, host-pathogen interaction and technology development in microscopy. After leaving the lab Pedro started his group "Intracellular Microbial Infection Biology Laboratory" at ITQB-NOVA, focused on understanding the dynamics of the interaction between mammalian host cells and facultative intracellular bacterial pathogens.
Ambre Jousselin, Post doctoral fellow
Ambre gained her PhD in 2009 from the University of Rennes, France. Her thesis project involved the characterization of sRNA expressed by Staphylococcus aureus. Then she moved to Geneva, Switzerland, for a postdoc centered on cell wall antibiotic resistance. Her main interest while in the BCB lab was investigating the link between protein secretion and antibiotic resistance in S. aureus. She moved to the Université de Toulouse Paul Sabatier for a teaching and research position.
Andreia Tavares, PhD student
Andreia graduated in Cell and Molecular Biology from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia and did her Masters in Cell Biology and Biotechnology from Faculdade de Ciências and Instituto Superior Técnico. As a PhD student, her main research interests were the molecular mechanisms behind the establishment of cell morphology and cell division. After concluding her PhD Andreia joined the Funding Office of the Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon.
João Monteiro, PhD student
João graduated in Applied Chemistry/Biotechnology from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia and did his Masters in Molecular Genetics in the Bacterial Cell Biology lab. As a PhD student his main scientific interests were bacterial stress response systems and antibiotic tolerance. He has moved to the Raff Lab, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford for a Post-doc.
Nathalie Reichmann, Post doctoral fellow
Nathalie graduated from Imperial College London with a BSc in Biology, before obtaining her PhD in 2012 from the same university. As a Post-doc, she currently investigated the elongation machinery of cocci, as well as the roles of the SCCmec cassette in Staphylococcus aureus. She moved to the Kleanthous Group, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford.
Ana Raquel Pereira, PhD student
Raquel graduated in Biology from Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa. She joined the Lab as a Masters student in Applied Microbiology, from the same institution. She continued as a PhD student to study the regulation of cell division an morphogenesis in S. aureus. After her PhD she moved to the microscopy company ONI in Oxford, UK.
Teresa Ferreira, PhD student
Teresa graduated in Microbiology from Escola Superior de Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. She joined the Lab to study, by NMR spectroscopy, the metabolic behaviour of Staphylococcus aureus, under the co-supervision of Doutora Ana Rute Neves.
Marta Sporniak, Technician
Marta graduated in Microbiology from the Faculty of Biology, The University of Gdańsk, in 2013. Her master thesis was done at The Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland. While in our lab, she studied of antibiotics mode of action in Staphylococcus aureus. She then moved to Jene, Germany, for a PhD.
Lucia Serra, MSc student
Lúcia graduated in Cell and Molecular Biology from the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia and joined our lab to work on her Master Thesis in Medical Microbiology at the Bacterial Cell Biology Laboratory. Her main research interests were the assembly and role of divisome proteins in Staphylococcus aureus. After completing her masters, Lucia moved to the Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon.
Vincent de Bakker, MSc student
Following graduation in BSc Biology at Leiden University, the Netherlands, Vincent enrolled in the MSc program Microbial Biotechnology and Health at the same institution. He performed a 6-month research internship at ITQB in the context of this Masters. His main subject of interest in this project was the role of the heterogeneity in antibiotic induced cell wall stress responses on antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus. After completing his masters, Vincent moved to the Veening Lab, University of Lausanne, for a PhD.
Rita Fernandes, Junior researcher
Rita graduaded in Biology from Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa and then did a Masters in Biotechnology in Instituto Superior Técnico. Her research in our lab was focused on studying the function of genes and proteins associated with cell division in Staphylococcus aureus. Rita moved to Porto to work in a company.
Pedro Matos, PhD student
Pedro graduated in Applied Chemistry and then did a masters in Biotechnology from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. His main research interests in the lab, as a PhD student were the mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus resistance to cell wall targeting antibiotics and the organization of the cell wall synthesis machinery. He finished his PhD in September 2013 with the thesis “Peptidoglycan assembly machines: The Staphylococcus aureus Penicillin-Binding Proteins”. He then moved to UCL, London for a post-doc.
Bernardino Moreira, Junior researcher
Bernardino graduated in Microbiology from Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, and then did a Masters in Applied Microbiology in the same institution. While in the lab, he studied the temporal and spatial localization of cell division proteins in Staphylococcus aureus.
Gabriela Henriques, MSc student
Gabriela graduated in Cell and Molecular Biology from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa and did a Masters on Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine, at the same institution. Her Master thesis was performed in our lab and focused on Staphylococcus aureus cell wall teichoic acids biosynthesis and their role in the localization of penicillin-binding protein PBP4. She moved to the UK to continue her research career.
Ana Jorge, PhD student
Ana graduated in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Sciences of Lisbon in 2005. She was the first PhD student to graduate from in our laboratory, in April 2012. Her thesis is intitled "Insights int cell wall synthesis and cell division in Staphylococcus aureus". After the PhD, Ana moved to the University of Tubingen, Germany, for a Pos-doc position.
Vânia Macario, Junior researcher
Vânia holds a Master’s degree in Biological Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. Her master thesis was done at The Centre for Process Innovation, Redcar, United Kingdom. While in the lab she investigated the mechanisms of cell wall synthesis in Staphylococcus aureus.
Sara Serradas Duarte, Junior researcher
Sara graduated in Microbiology at Escola Superior de Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa. While in the Lab, she studied the selection of division planes in S. aureus. She moved to Cambridge to do a PhD in Neurobiology.
Ana Manso, Junior researcher
Ana graduated and did a Masters in Biological Engineer from Instituto Superior Técnico. Her master thesis was done at Ospedale di San Paolo, Milan, Italy. She is currently studying the metabolic behaviour of Staphylococcus aureus mutants in key steps of the biosynthesis of the peptidoglycan precursor, using NMR spectroscopy under the co-supervision of Dra. Ana Rute Neves. After she left the lab she sarted her PhD in Microbiology at the University of Siena, Italy.
Margarida Santos, Post doctoral fellow
Margarida graduated in Applied Chemistry – Biotechnology from the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, New University of Lisbon. She got her PhD in Biotechnology from the Technical University of Denmark. Her current research interests are on the biochemical and cellular organization of metabolic pathways of the peptidoglycan biosynthesis. She moved to Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, as a "Ciência" fellow.
