Expertise
Protein engineering, Computational design, Immunoengineering, Synthetic biology
Current work
Featuring molecular surface fingerprints to decipher protein functional propertiesBottom-up de novo design of functional proteinsComputational design of synthetic components for CAR T-cellsComputational Design of Precision Vaccines
Throughout my PhD and postdoctoral studies I was trained in world-renowned laboratories and institutions in the United States of America (University of Washington and The Scripps Research Institute). Very early in my scientific career I found out my fascination about protein structure and function. My PhD studies evolved in the direction of immunogen design and vaccine engineering which sparked my interest in the many needs and opportunities in vaccinology and translational research. My efforts resulted in an enlightening piece of work where for the first time, computationally designed immunogens elicited potent neutralizing antibodies. During my postdoctoral studies I joined a chemical biology laboratory at the Scripps Research Institute. In this stage I developed novel chemoproteomics methods for the identification of protein-small molecule interaction sites in complex proteomes. In March 2015, I joined the école Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) & Switzerland as a tenure track assistant professor. The focus of my research group is to develop computational tools for protein design with particular emphasis in applying these strategies to immunoengineering (e.g. vaccine and cancer immunotherapy). The activities in my laboratory focus on computational design methods development and experimental characterization of the designed proteins. Our laboratory has been awarded with 2 prestigious research grants from the European Research Council. Lastly, I have been awarded the prize for best teacher of Life sciences in 2019. Education PhD | Computational Biology 2010 – 2010 Universidade Nova de Lisboa B. S. | Chemistry 2004 – 2004 Universidade de Coimbra Professionals experiences Assistant professor 2015–2015 Institute of Bioengineering - EPFLPost-doctoral researcher 2011–2011 The Scripps Research Institute
Teaching & PhD PhD Students Shuhao Xiao, Irina Morozova, Yangyang Miao, Pengkang Guo, Mubarak Olanrewaju Idris, Adrian Wolfgang Dobbelstein, Julius Wenckstern, Flávia Mayumi Odahara de Abreu, Marin Paul Geoffroy Marie Ollagnon, Evgenia Elizarova, Christian Schellhaas, Tian Zhu, Ekaterina Pyatova, Lennart Nickel, Petra Elisabeth Marilena Balbi, Nicolas Manuel Goldbach, Maddalena Elia, Rebecca Manuela Neeser Past EPFL PhD Students Fabian Sesterhenn, Che Yang, Andreas Scheck, Zander Harteveld, Sailan Shui, Sarah Wehrle, Alexandra Krina Van Hall-Beauvais, Anthony Marchand, Freyr Sverrisson, Karla Montserrat Castro Gilabert, Ahmed Sadek, Casper Goverde, Stephen Michael Buckley, Ilia Igashov, Arne Schneuing Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Mathieu Girardin, Lucia Bonati Courses Bio-organic chemistry BIO-110 The aim of the course is to provide a chemical understanding and intuition to decipher and predict chemical processes in living systems. Monthly IBI-EDBB Mini-symposia BIOENG-600 To expose EDBB students to research in Bioengineering through attendance of lecture series given by EDBB students and external speakers. The objectives are to broaden the knowledge of students in the field of Bioengineering and expose them to the diversity of studies in the IBI community. Synthetic biology BIOENG-320 This advanced Bachelor/Master level course will cover fundamentals and approaches at the interface of biology, chemistry, engineering and computer science for diverse fields of synthetic biology. This class requires critical and analytical thinking at the frontiers of multiple disciplines Trends in chemical biology and drug discovery BIOENG-510 In this course we will cover the scientific basis behind chemical biology approaches for drug development.
Awards PhD scholarship Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia 2006 ERC Starting grant European Research Council 2016 Visiting scientist Radcliffe Institute - Harvard 2018 Teaching award EPFL - SV 2019 Protein Science Young Investigator Award from Protein Society 2021
