We got two new great girls in science!

We are thrilled to welcome Margarida Braga and Bruna Garcia to the team!

Margarida is a Biochemist born in Belarus and raised in Portugal, and joins us after a few years studying and working in Belgium. Margarida successfully completed her Master's in Biology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, centered on the development of fluorescently-labelled peptide-based hydrogels for sustained drug delivery in in vivo models. After a brief stay in Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Margarida joined the group of Kevin Ariën at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, where she worked as a research assistant in the field of Virology. Now she returns to Portugal to embrace a new challenge in cancer research, and joins the lab as a Research Assistant to help us keep the lab organized and support multiple research projects.

Bruna Garcia is a Biotech Engineer from Brazil, and comes to us after a successful PhD in the lab of Lena Pernas at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing and the University of Cologne, Germany. During her PhD thesis, Bruna discovered a key role for glutamine in the regulation of cholesterol synthesis, opening a new avenue to develop glutamine-based therapies to effectively control cholesterol levels. Now Bruna blends her strong background in metabolism with her passion to solve the grand challenge of cancer dormancy and metastasis. She joins the lab as a Postdoc to spearhead a project on how the host metabolism affects the formation of breast cancer metastases.

Welcome Bruna and Margarida - we're certain that you will make an incredible impact in the lab & the world, in so many different ways!