Ana S. Martins, MSc
BSc in Genetics and Biotechnology
MSc in Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine
PhD candidate in Medical Biochemistry
Main Achievements
-
FCT Research Fellowship
-
FCT Doctoral Grant
-
Selected speaker at 5th International Iberian Biophysics Congress
-
Competitive EMBO funding for a collaboration in Singapore (A*STAR Agency)
Short Bio
I am PhD student with a FCT Fellowship "A nanotechnology approach to Flavivirus-targeted drug development strategies". I recently applied and obtained a competitive EMBO short-term grant, to support a 3 months stay at A*Star Institute, Singapore. During my time there, I demonstrated that Dengue C protein binds specifically to particular regions of the virus RNA. I am now expanding these results for Zika viral RNA and its C protein and I will test if pep14-23, that inhibits Dengue and West Nile viruses C proteins can also inhibit Zika virus C protein. Besides my PhD project, I participated, together with Ivo and Patricia (co-founders of DART Diagnostics), in the COHiTEC Program, focused on translating our technology in the lab into business. I was selected as a speaker at 5th International Iberian Biophysics Congress (Porto, Portugal) and at Satellite Meeting of the 42nd FEBS Congress (Jerusalem, Israel) to present the results obtained during the first two years of my PhD project.