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Research Associate

Education and Training

PhD in Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal, 2018

MSc in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, Portugal, 2014

BSc in Biomedical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, Portugal, 2012

Research activities

The main focus of my research work is to develop new models to study neurodegenerative diseases such as ataxias that are caused by dysfunction of the cerebellum. For this purpose, I am generating cultures of cerebellar neurons from control and disease human iPS cells, which will be used for studying specific pathways involved in disease development. Once we know these pathways, we can manipulate them for developing new therapeutic strategies.

Selected publications

Lee, B., Borys, B.S., Kallos, M.S., Rodrigues, C.A. V., Silva, T.P., Cabral, J.M.S. Challenges and Solutions for Commercial Scale Manufacturing of Allogeneic Pluripotent Stem Cell Products. Bioengineering 7(2):31 (2020).

Santana, M.M., Paixão, S., Cunha-Santos, J., Silva, T.P., Trevino-Garcia, A., Gaspar, L.S., Nóbrega, C., Nobre, R.J., Cavadas, C., Greif, H., de Almeida, L.P. Trehalose alleviates the phenotype of Machado–Joseph disease mouse models. J Transl Med 18:161 (2020).

Silva, T.P., Bekman, E., Fernandes, T.G., Vaz, S.H., Rodrigues, C.A.V., Diogo, M.M., Cabral J.M.S., Carmo-Fonseca, M. Maturation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived cerebellar neurons in the absence of co-culture. Front Bioeng Biotechnol 8:70 (2020).

Silva, T.P., Cotovio, J.P., Bekman, E., Carmo-Fonseca, M., Cabral, J.M.S., Fernandes, T.G. Design Principles for Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Organoid Engineering. Stem Cells Int 2019:1-17 (2019).

Oliveira Miranda, C., Marcelo, A.*, Silva, T.P.*, Barata, J.*, Vasconcelos-Ferreira, A., Pereira, D., Nóbrega, C., Duarte, S., Barros, I., Alves, J., Sereno, J., Petrella, L.I., Castelhano, J., Paiva, V.H., Rodrigues-Santos, P., Alves, V., Nunes-Correia, I., Nobre, R.J., Gomes, C., Castelo-Branco, M., Pereira de Almeida, L. Repeated Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Treatment Sustainably Alleviates Machado-Joseph Disease. Mol Ther 26(9):2131-2151 (2018).

Rodrigues, C.A.V., Branco, M., Nogueira, D.E.S., Silva, T.P., Gomes, A.R., Diogo, M.M., Cabral, J.M.S. Bioreactors for Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Expansion and Differentiation, in Bioreactors for Stem Cell Expansion and Differentiation, (J.M.S. Cabral & C. Lobato da Silva, Eds.), CRC Press, ISBN 9781498795906 (2018).

Rodrigues, C.A.V., Silva, T.P., Nogueira, D.E.S., Fernandes, T.G., Hashimura, Y., Wesselschmidt, R., Diogo, M.M., Lee, B., Cabral, J.M.S. Scalable Culture Of Human Induced Pluripotent Cells On Microcarriers Under Xeno‐Free Conditions Using Single‐Use Vertical‐Wheel™ Bioreactors. J Chem Technol Biotechnol 93(12):3597-3606 (2018).