Made in Bio, where speakers that studied Bioengineering at FEUP are invited to come and share their journey from university to the working world.
Ana Luísa Gonçalves
Biological Engineer searching for solutions that may allow us to fight climate change and ecosystem degradation. At LEPABE she conducted research on microalgae that play an important role in CO2 capture and wastewater pollutant removal. Currently, she is a researcher in the Technology and Engineering Department at CITEVE working on the paradigm change in the textile industry.
Francisco Raio
Francisco is a scientist turned product manager. After spending some time in the lab, he broke into the tech startup world through sales. He now leads product at Clustermarket. At the end of the day, he lives to do his best and help people. You can often find him surfing as he loves the ocean too much.
Tiago Gonçalves
The increasing popularity of machine learning algorithms for computer vision and natural language processing made these models attractive to other research domains. For instance, in healthcare, there is a strong need for tools that may improve the routines of clinicians and patients. However, healthcare is a domain that depends on high-stake decisions; hence, the scientific community must ponder if these high-performing algorithms fit the needs of medical applications. This talk aims to discuss the state-of-the-art approaches to achieve interpretable and transparent algorithms for medical purposes while (hopefully) bringing a critical perspective to the claims and potentialities present in the literature that may envision future research lines in medical applications that may benefit from these frameworks.
Tiago received his MSc in Bioengineering (Biomedical Engineering) from Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (FEUP) in 2019. Currently, he is a PhD Student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at FEUP and a research assistant at the Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia of INESC TEC with the Visual Computing & Machine Intelligence (VCMI) Research Group. His research interests include machine learning, explainable artificial intelligence (in-model approaches), computer vision, medical decision support systems, and machine learning deployment. Besides working, he enjoys practising Karate-Do Shotokai or reading about life, philosophy, economy, politics or fundamental science. Moreover, he does not refuse a good TV series or film (preferably at the cinema).
Bioengineering is changing the way we view biomaterials. From the animal kingdom to the fungi or bacteria, it is now possible to imagine biofabrication shaping our lives. Let's see what innovations will help us “bioild” the future.
Amir Zadpoor
Architected materials with properties that were once considered impossible are being currently developed by a wide range of researchers from different disciplines. Meta-biomaterials are a new addition to these novel classes of metamaterials, where otherwise impossible combinations of mechanical, mass transport, and biological properties are created through complex geometrical designs as well as complex spatial distributions of material properties at multiple scales starting from macroscale and going all the way down to nanoscale. This talk will introduce the concept of meta-biomaterials and will present an overview of the meta-biomaterials developed in my lab during the past decade.
Amir Zadpoor is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor and Chaired Professor of Biomaterials & Tissue Biomechanics at Delft University of Technology as well as Professor of Orthopedics at Leiden University Medical Center. He develops advanced additive manufacturing techniques for the fabrication of metamaterials with unprecedented properties. Moreover, he is a world recognized expert in origami- and kirigami-based (bio)materials that are made by combining shape-shifting with additive manufacturing. Amir has received many awards including ERC, Vidi, Veni, and Jean Leray award.
Anabela Marisa Azul
Fungi regulate biogeochemical cycles in soil by forming symbiotic relations with plants and decomposing materials, creating a food wide web in soil. Fungi are dietary components since the hunter-gathering communities and have gained a momentum in agro-food and biomedical research due to their interplay in ecosystems and human metabolism traits. The next revolution is on the way by taking advantage of bioengineering of fungi, namely in building materials, textiles, sensors, among others. Fungi are discussed in terms of their role as key bioengineers in the future on Earth.
Anabela Marisa Azul, Biologist, with PhD in Ecology, at the University of Coimbra (UC), with collaboration at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, Principal Investigator at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the UC. Over almost two decades she dedicated her research to biotic interactions, symbiotic fungi of soil and their attributes linked to conservation and production of Mediterranean forests. Marisa developed a holistic approach for advancing translational research by combining biodiversity and sustainable innovation in food production. At the present, she is leading the research group Interdisciplinary Studies on Metabolism
Miguel Gama
Bacterial cellulose (BC) is recognized as a biomaterial with great technological potential. However, its actual applications are far from meeting these expectations. The current status of the BC related R&D, covering applications in biomedicine, textiles, cosmetics and food will be addressed in the presentation.
Professor Miguel Gama is Associate Professor at the Department of Biological Engineering of the University of Minho. He is the Diretor of the research group Funcarb, dedicated to R&D on polysaccharides. He is the co-founder of the spinoff Satisfiber, dedicated to translational activities related to bacterial cellulose.
Oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth's surface. We know they are incredible sources of resources for numerous areas, but how about Bioengineering? Can we harness the potential and biodiversity of marine environments for new therapeutic and scientific approaches? Come and Sea to Believe!
Luís Silva
Chemiluminescence consists on light-emission from a chemical reaction, and can be observed in many living organisms. While it is more easily recognizable on land in fireflies, it is more prevalent in the oceans. In this presentation will be discussed how marine chemiluminescence can be used as a basis for developing more efficient and selective anticancer agents.
Luís Pinto da Silva holds a PhD in Chemistry (approved with distinction), and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP) and a member of the UP Chemistry Research Center (CIQUP). With more than 100 published scientific articles, his focus is the study of chemiluminescent systems and their modification for application as antitumor therapy.
Marta Mendes
The deep-sea constitutes a true unexplored frontier and a potential source of innovative drug scaffolds. Due to the extreme environmental conditions deep-sea bacteria display unique metabolic features with the potential to produce natural products with distinctive chemical structures and bioactivities. Genome mining of bacteria from marine environments, including deep-sea, represents a key approach to unlock this untapped reservoir of natural products. In this talk, I will present some results from ACTINODEEPSEA, a project that integrates teams from CIIMAR (Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, UP) and i3S (Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, UP) and that aims to explore the vast deep-sea area of Portugal in terms of native actinobacteria and their potential to produce novel compounds that can meet the needs of bioeconomy-based societies.
Marta Vaz Mendes graduated in Biochemistry at th5e University of Lisbon in 1997 and in 2003, completed her PhD degree (cum laude) in Biological Sciences (Plant and Microbial Biotechnology) at the University of León (Spain). Her research interests are focused on the synergic use of synthetic biology principles and metabolic engineering methodologies to study the regulatory networks that control Streptomyces physiology and metabolism.
Tiago Mendes
Biotechnology in general has been offering a growing toolbox for humans to explore solutions to different societal challenges. In particular, marine (blue) biotechnology is based on marine organisms and derived materials and compounds for the study and proposal of new products, processes and technologies, with new bioactive compounds being described and exquisite structures inspiring novel engineering approaches. In the framework of valorization of marine biological resources and derived by-products, under a circular economy concept, this talk will address the isolation of materials from different marine biomass, including biopolymers as collagens, chitosan and fucoidan, as well as ceramics as calcium phosphates and biosilica.
Tiago H. Silva has a PhD in Chemistry (Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal, 2006) and is currently Senior Researcher at 3B’s Research Group, I3Bs Research Institute on Biomaterials, Biodegradables and Biomimetics, from University of Minho (Portugal). He has been working on the valorization of marine resources and by-products, in the cross-talk between blue and red biotechnologies, by aiming at the development of marine inspired biomaterials – based in biopolymers as marine collagens, chitosan and fucoidan, and ceramics as calcium phosphates and biosilica – for tissue engineering in regenerative medicine strategies and other advanced therapies, namely for cancer and diabetes.
Did you know that fashion and self-care are deeply related to science and technology? How are recent discoveries changing the way we look and care for ourselves? Come take a look at the new findings which are shaping the future of beauty in this panel - Reinventing Beauty!
Catarina Oliveira
In commodity applications silica is used as a filler and a binder, and demonstrates high levels of performance in skin care and colour cosmetics. Silica is commonly produced using river sand, which is rich in silicon dioxide. However, this process is not sustainable since it affects riverbeds and coastlines, threatening the environment. Thus, new sources of silica have been pursued over the last decades. Sugarcane ash, a by-product resulting from the sugar production process, was explored. This is a sustainable source of silica since it results from the burning of bagasse, a by-product from sugar processing process. In this talk, the process development stages of Biosilica, including the extraction process optimization, as well as the process to obtain microparticles will be showed, along with the product development stages targeting the cosmetic market. This project is at industrial scale stage and it is a successful case study of the possibility of using industrial by-products as sources of valuable compounds for commercialization in different markets.
Catarina SS Oliveira is a Senior Researcher in the Alchemy Project (an ESB-UCP and Amyris Inc. joint-collaboration project at UCP), working in the economic valorisation of residues/by-products from Amyris industrial fermentations, through fractionation and purification of components of interest, aiming the development of innovative products for food, animal feed, agricultural, cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications.
Inês Milagre
Ageing is the gradual decline in organismal fitness that occurs over time leading to tissue dysfunction and disease. At the cellular level, ageing is associated with reduced function, altered gene expression and a perturbed epigenome. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be generated in culture using ectopic expression of only four transcription factors and offer key tissue engineering opportunities and clinical applications, namely, to curb age-related diseases. We have developed the first method, where reprogramming factors are selectively expressed until a rejuvenation point and then withdrawn.
Inês Milagre is a stem cell biologist interested in understanding why pluripotent stem cells are prone to making mistakes during mitosis. She is focusing her research in understanding why reprogramming to pluripotency alters the regulation of the mitotic machinery and decreases mitotic fidelity. On the other hand, she is also interested in understanding if we can use reprogramming to rejuvenate and improve our cells and ultimately our health.
Marta Midão
During the speech, a brief presentation of CeNTI - Centre for Nanotechnology and Smart Materials will be held, exploring some of the challenges present in the development of smart textiles, emphasizing the role that smart and functional materials have in addressing these challenges. Within this context, different R&D projects where functional, aesthetically, and appealing products in the sports and health sectors will be presented.
Marta Midão has a Master’s degree on Chemical Engineering from Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto. Currently she works as researcher on the field of Smart Materials at Centi - Centro de Nanotecnologia e Materiais Inteligentes, having knowledge on production and characterisation of polymeric composite structures (thermoplastics and thermo hardening materials), developing of textile sensors and actuators and project management on the field of Smart Textiles and Smart Composites.
Getting and consuming food has changed radically over the last few decades. In fact, an increasing and demanding population drives this industry's research focus towards more sophisticated, efficient and eco-friendly solutions.
Frederico Ferreira
Frederico Ferreira works at Técnico Lisboa, where his research and teaching are committed to foster innovation and sustainability. Dr Frederico has expertise in tailoring biomaterials for stem cell cultivation and differentiation, electrospun fiber production, design of electroconductive scaffolds, and stem cell cultivation under electrical stimuli. Currently, his research group is developing novel edible bioinks made from algae driven materials to bioprint engineered fish tissue. F. Ferreira holds a PhD (2004) from Imperial College London, an MBA (2008) from NOVA Lisboa.
Luísa Cruz
The world faces an unprecedented challenge to meet a fast-growing protein demand. MicroHarvest is pushing boundaries to deliver the sustainable protein ingredients of the future. But such can only be done by integrating different disciplines together. This presentation will discuss the role of bioprocessing to deliver impactful solutions today.
Luísa holds a MSc in Biotechnology from the Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal), which took her to DSM (The Netherlands) where she began her industrial career while writing her master's thesis, in 2006. Following a year of experience as a researcher at the pilot unit of IBET and the Bioengineering group at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Luísa returned to the Netherlands where she got a PhD degree in Bioprocess Technology from Delft University of Technology. Luísa joined MicroHarvest in January 2022 as co-founder and CTO, driven by the passion to bring different disciplines together to solve current challenges of our food system.
Susana Sores
In today's society, the importance of prioritizing healthy, sustainable plant-based diets is well recognized. A plant-based diet has been linked to improved mental and physical health, reduced risk of chronic disease, and a longer life span. Additionally, shifting towards a more plant-based lifestyle can be beneficial for the environment, as it requires fewer resources and produces fewer emissions.
Susana Soares is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and a researcher at REQUIMTE/LAQV. Her research focuses on understanding and modulating the taste of food, particularly plant-based foods. She has been responsible for mentoring undergraduate, master, and doctoral students. She is the PI of an ERC Starting Grant, BeTASTy, and the Coordinator of an Horizon Europe project, WHEATBIOME.
The tech world is moving at a fast pace and starting to modernize healthcare as we know it. Maybe one day you will enter the clinic and hope a robot can treat you. From fabrication to surgery planning or performing a surgery, this is the panel for you to explore the world of the future.
Alessandro Casella
The talk will discuss the use of soft-robotics in flexible endoscopy and micro-catheters for diagnosing and treatment of several diseases or pathologies. Robotic flexible endoscopes and micro-catheters have the potential to transform the field of medicine by providing a safe, easy-to-use, affordable, and low-risk alternative for procedures like gastrointestinal endoscopy and mitral-valve replacement.
Alessandro is a post-doctoral researcher who obtained his PhD in Bioengineering with a cum laude distinction from Politecnico di Milano in January 2023. He focused his thesis on Surgical Data Science for Computer-Aided Fetoscopy, which he carried out in collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Gaslini Hospital, and University College London. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with numerous hospitals and research centers and co-organized an international challenge as part of the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention. Alessandro is currently working at the Neuroengineering and Medical Robotics Laboratory (NearLAB) at Politecnico di Milano, where his research focuses on computer vision and artificial intelligence for computer aided surgery and integrating these systems with robotics for autonomous surgery.
Jaime Campos
Surgical planning in orthopedics is crucial to ensure the best possible clinical outcomes, but the planning process can be complex, painstaking and time consuming for surgeons. In recent years a rapid wave of technologies have been introduced to improve the intraoperative component of surgeries, from robot surgery to augmented reality, but limited advances have been made to improve the first critical step: the pre-operative planning, which makes the surgery more predictable, effective, and safer. At PeekMed®, we leverage the power of AI to improve the surgical planning process and make for more efficient and reliable orthopedic surgeries. Using a wide spectrum of deep learning technologies, we are able to automate and validate all planning steps, providing actionable feedback to surgeons at every second. Using our software, surgeons can be confident in their approach, and integrate their planning with a wide range of surgical technologies. In this presentation, you will be able to look under the hood of our product, understand use cases and how AI is applied to solve these real world problems.
Jaime is the CTO and Co-Founder of PeekMed, a fully automated system based on AI technology for orthopedic surgery planning. He has an extensive experience in leading cross-functional engineering teams towards the conception and development of unique MedTech products using groundbreaking technologies.
Pierre Maillet
Surgical robots are today installed into operating room all around the world and for almost all surgical applications. ROSA is a surgical robotic platform providing already more than 6 different applications from the brain to the knee.
Pierre Maillet has a PhD in surgical robots and currently works on Zimmer Biomet Robotics as RD associate director. This team focuses on developing solutions to help medical professionals perform their surgeries.
Each day that passes by, engineering puts us closer and closer to the reality of establishing human settlements on other planets. Studies in the field of space exploration may also provide great knowledge with application on Earth, providing solutions to health and environmental problems. Let's talk about innovations out of this world!
Akmaral Suleimenova
In this talk I am going to talk about the importance of diagnostics for disease prevention and the increasing role of biosensors in it. The problems astronauts meet in microgravity conditions are various from mass loss, space radiation, stress and blur in vision. Then I will show what are the present solutions they used to deal with it currently and how we could facilitate the solutions. At the end I am going to talk about our journey from idea to implementation of testing biosensors in microgravity conditions. And my story of how I ended up interested in space science.
I am from Kazakhstan originally and currently reside in Portugal. I work as a researcher in the BioMark Sensor research group at the University of Coimbra. I finished my masters in Chemistry, Medical Application of Radiations, Material Science and Engineering in University of Porto, University of Genoa, Paris Saclay universities. My research interests are: nano and biomimetic materials, space diagnostics, biosensors tech for diagnostics and disease prevention and autonomous robotic systems development.
Nieves Cubo
Fifty years after the first human landed on the Moon, mankind has started to plan the next steps for manned space exploration missions. When the time required to return to Earth exceeds 400-500 days (as in travels to Mars), the level of independence that the crew must possess is highly increased. To ensure the survival and good living conditions of these future explorers, new developments regarding medical infrastructure and resources must be carried out. Here, we will talk about how 3D printing and bioprinting can be of use to improve the autonomy of the crew when facing the most probable clinical scenarios that can occur in long-term space exploratory missions.
She graduated in Electronic and Automatic Engineering from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in 2013 and holds a Master's degree in Materials Science and Engineering (2013-2014) from UC3M and a Master's degree in Teaching specialized in experimental sciences and technology (2015-2016) from Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio (UAX). She holds a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Faculty of Pharmacy. She is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of ARIES, a research group at the Antonio de Nebrija University (UNNE), focused on Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Systems, where she continues her work in the field of bioengineering, with research on biomaterials, optimization of 3D structures, medical image analysis, etc.
Rosa Santomartino
Microorganisms have been shown to perform a myriad of useful tasks on Earth, for instance the extraction of useful metals from rock ores (biomining) and the break down microplastics into organic nutrients (plastic biodegradation), offering exciting paths towards a circular bioeconomy. In this lecture, I will highlight promising roles that microbial biotechnologies could perform to support a sustainable human presence in space, with particular focus on biomining and synthetic waste recycling.
Rosa Santomartino is the principal investigator of the Space Microbiology group at the University of Edinburgh and co-director of the UK Centre for Astrobiology. Her major research interest lays in understanding how to harness the power of microorganisms for the development of sustainable biotechnologies for space exploration, and how these could help tackling environmental issues on Earth. She was recently awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2022-2025) and two University of Edinburgh Moray Endowment Fund (2022-2023) for her own research project on plastic biodegrading microorganisms for sustainable space exploration.
Does the brain fascinate you? Do you find the nervous system intriguing? Come learn more about how to understand, repair and regenerate them with the help of top-tier specialists in the area.
Giulia d'Angelo
To live in an unconstrained world, an autonomous agent, such as a robot, requires low latency and low power consumption to navigate and interact with the environment. Most importantly, a robotic setup requires optimal performance with compact and efficient hardware in limited space. The increasing demand for faster systems, smaller devices and more accurate responses leaves the scientific community with a complex challenge. Bioinspiration explores neural mechanisms to respond to these questions where in-memory computing and event-based sensing are powerful alternatives to the common von Neumann architecture.
Gulia d’Angelo is a Neuroengineer, currently a Postdoctoral researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology. She obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Biomedical Engineering at The University of Genoa in 2015. She continued her studies by accomplishing a Master's Degree in Neuroengineering in 2017, where she developed a neuromorphic algorithm for the egocentric representation of the peripersonal visual space at the King's College of London. Therefore, she obtained a Doctorate in bioinspired visual attention mechanisms for robotic applications at The University of Manchester in 2022. Her current research takes advantage of bioinspired event-driven cameras and compact and low-power neuroinspired hardware.
Jorge Coelho
This presentation describes the various steps in the development of a new technology for peripheral nerve regeneration based on guide tubes. Two FDA-approved polymers have been modified to allow the fabrication of custom-made guide tubes that meet all the requirements for the application. The patent for this technology has already been granted in several countries and a spin-off from the University of Coimbra is being created.
Jorge Coelho, (CEng., Ph.D.,), is a full professor at the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Coimbra. His research interests include reversible deactivation radical polymerization, bio-based and biodegradable polymers, novel pharmaceutical products, scale-up, and polymer characterization methods (in particular dynamic mechanical thermal analysis and size exclusion chromatography). He is member of the board of directors of Portuguese Materials Society and he is also responsible for the Division of Polymers and Composites of the same society. He is the national representative of EMPA – European Association for Preventive, Predictive and Personalized Medicine and the national representative at EPF – European Polymer Federation.
Paulo Aguiar
In this talk I will discuss the use of memristive devices (a particular type of neuromorphic electronics) in a clinically relevant setting where neuronal activity is controlled in real time. In this setting, communication between two neuronal populations is conditioned to specific activity patterns in the source population which are detected by the memristive devices. In our approach, the memristor performs a pattern detection computation and acts as an artificial synapse capable of reversible short-term plasticity. Using in vitro hippocampal neuronal cultures, we show real-time adaptive control with a high degree of reproducibility using our monitor-compute-actuate paradigm. We envision very similar systems being used for the automatic detection and suppression of seizures in epileptic patients.
Paulo Aguiar graduated in Physics ("Engª Física Tecnológica") from Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal, and completed his PhD at the Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, UK, in 2006. After finishing his PhD in Computational Neuroscience he joined, as a postdoc in neurobiology, the Neuroscience Unit at the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMC), Portugal. In 2008 he was awarded a competitive researcher grant in Computational Biology, and in 2013 he was invited to join the National Institute for Biomedical Engineering (INEB) as an Assistant Investigator.Since 2016 he is a Principal Investigator at i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, where he leads the Neuroengineering and Computational Neuroscience Lab (NCN). Paulo Aguiar is coauthor in 70+ international peer-reviewed publications and has been (co)PI/Task Leader in 18 national and international research projects, obtained in competitive calls.
