One of the most intriguing and fatal characteristic of brain tumors is dissemination. This phenomenon can occur through dissemination of cancer cells from distant organs to the brain (brain metastases) or within the central nervous system (CNS) from primary brain tumors (medulloblastoma and ependymoma). The relevance to study brain metastatic disease relies in the absence of effective therapies, leading to severe disability and poor patient survival.
Therefore, our lab aims at understanding the dynamics of cancer cells and the mechanisms leading to CNS dissemination, the identification of biomarkers for early cancer detection using liquid biopsies and high-throughput genomics, and the development of novel treatment protocols using patient-derived models of brain metastatic disease.
We are a highly multidisciplinary and collaborative group combining the expertise of experimental biologists and clinicians from diverse disciplines in Neuro-Oncology, in the campus and beyond. Our translational projects take advantage of a large Brain Tumor Collection at the Biobanco-iMM CAML harbouring biological samples (tumor tissue, blood, plasma and cerebrospinal fluid) with detailed clinical annotation from pediatric and adult patients. In our lab we use cellular and molecular biology techniques, advanced microscopy, computational biology, and in vivo models of brain tumors. We are particularly interested in developing ex vivo organotypic models and patient-derived xenografts of brain tumors.
Check the page of the Centro de Investigação de Tumores Cerebrais here, for more information and to donate for our research.
- Head of Translational Laboratory at CARE since 2023
- Co-Director of Biobanco-iMM CAML since 2018
- Invited Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology at FMUL since 2014
- Consultant Neurosurgeon at CHULN-HSM since 2010
- PhD in Medicine at FMUL and University of Toronto, Canada (2014)
- Medical Degree at University of Coimbra (2001)