People

NOVA School of Science and Technology

Lisbon, Portugal

Cecília Roque

Project Coordinator

Cecilia Roque is coordinating the PURE project.

She is an Associate Professor in Bioengineering at the Chemistry Department, School of Science & Technology at NOVA University (Lisbon, Portugal). Cecilia is a principal researcher at UCIBIO-NOVA and leads the Biomolecular Engineering Lab. She holds a degree in Chemical Engineering (Major in Biotechnology) & a PhD in Biotechnology from Instituto Superior Técnico, and has an Habilitation in Bioengineering from NOVA University of Lisbon.

Her research focus on bioengineering, namely on the development of advanced functional materials that combine novel affinity receptors with bio-based and sustainable materials for bioseparation and biosensing.

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Fernanda Llussá

Professor

Fernanda Llussá (female) is currently an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Social Sciences Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal. Llussá holds a PhD in Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA, USA) and a Master´s degree in Business Economics (FGV-SP, Brazil). She also held a visiting position on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Deshpande Entrepreneurship Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MIT Portugal.

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Catarina Domingos

PhD Student

Catarina Domingos is a research assistant in the Biomolecular Engineering Lab at FCT-NOVA, with a background in Chemical and Biological Engineering. Her research project is focused on the development of functionalized purification matrices, for the bioseparation of biopharmaceuticals. She did her MSc thesis in BIOCEV institute and has experience in photosensitive proteins.

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Paula Urze

Professor

Paula Urze holds a Ph.D. in Economic and Organizational Sociology (School of Economics and Management, ISEG/UL). Since April 2018 she is head of the Department of Applied Social Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon (FCT NOVA), Associate Professor (2020) in the same Department and researcher at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT).

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Carolina Natal

PhD Student

Carolina Natal is a research assistant in the Biomolecular Engineering Lab at NOVA Faculty of Science and Technology. She has a degree in Biochemistry (2018) and a Master Degree in Techniques of Characterization and Chemical Analysis (2021) by University of Minho (Braga). She worked in the SMASUS project as a research assistant before joining the PURE team. She has a background in HPLC/NMR/MS techniques, organic chemistry, affinity ligands, quantification of proteins and electrophoresis methods.

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Carlos Costa

PhD Student

PhD student. Previously completed the BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology and the MSc in Biochemistry at NOVA School of Science and Technology. During the Master's Thesis, worked at the Bionano Research Laboratory of UCIBIO (Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit), using a multidisciplinary approach to study the interaction between blood serum proteins and spherical gold nanoparticles as a potential novel diagnostics technique based on the analysis of disease-specific blood serum protein profiles manifested as a protein corona formed on the surface of spherical gold nanoparticles upon exposure to a blood serum sample.

Rita has now joined the PURE team to work as a Research Assistant.

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Bárbara Diogo

Project Manager

Bárbara Diogo holds a Bachelor in Applied Biology and a Master in Applied Marine Biology both from University of Aveiro. She has worked as a Research Assistant with the Marine Mammal Research Team from the University of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Throughout her academic and professional career, Bárbara developed interested for communicating science whereas for the scientific community or simply as a guide for a sustainable marine tourism company. She believes her love for communicating science and managing projects can contribute to the Pure Project and therefore she joined the team as Project Manager.

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University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences

Vienna, Austria

Alois Jungbauer

Team Coordinator

Professor Alois Jungbauer received his PhD in Food Technology and Biotechnology from BOKU. He is head of the Institute of Process Science and Engineering at BOKU. He teaches Protein Technology, Downstream Processing and Bioprocess Engineering and is study director of the Ph.D. program Bioprocess Engineering. He also acts as deputy area head of Bioprocessing Engineering and Deputy Director of Research in the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology. He is currently working in the field of bioprocess engineering of proteins, plasmids and viruses. He has published 340 papers on recombinant protein production, bioseparation and advanced materials for bioprocess enginering, 17 patents and 12 book contributions and recently a monograph entitled “Protein Chromatography, Process Development and Scale Up”. He is executive editor of Biotechnology Journal. He acts also as the vice president of research of the European Society of Biochemical Engineering Science.

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Alexander Zollner

PhD Student

My name is Alexander Zollner and I am a 26-year-old student from Austria. I am about to finish my Master’s degree in Biotechnology at the University of Life Sciences Vienna in early 2021. During my studies I have particularly gained experience in analytics and biotechnological up- and downstream processing. Immediately after my graduation I will start working for the 2020 Horizon project PURE as a PhD student, and so I am looking forward to contributing to the success of our competitive and ambitious programme. Besides my university studies I really love travelling and exploring different countries and cultures. In addition to German, my mother tongue, I am fluent in English and Italian and always keen on learning new languages. Thus, I am highly motivated and even enthusiastic about taking part in a Europe-wide project, which combines my passion for both science and international exchange.

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Birgit Wiltschi

Principal Investigator

Birgit Wiltschi received a PhD in Biochemistry from Graz University of Technology in Austria. She continued her scientific work as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany and afterwards was a group leader at the Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg, Germany. Currently, she is a principal investigator in PURE at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. In addition, she heads the Synthetic Biology Group at the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology in Graz, Austria and she is a principal investigator of the BioTechMed-Graz flagship project 'DYNIMO - Dynamics of Subcellular Partitioning through Protein Modification'. Her research focusses on the engineering of proteins using unnatural amino acids, for instance to introduce site-selective bioorthogonal protein modifications.

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Bayreuth University

Bayreuth, Germany

Thomas Scheibel

Team Coordinator

Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheibel is full professor for Biomaterials as well as Vice President for internationalization, gender equality and diversity at the University of Bayreuth. Since 2014 he is a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). He initiated and chairs the topical committee on “Bioinspired and interactive materials” at the Germen Materials Society (DGM), is chairman of the Bayreuth-Melbourne Colloid & Polymer network, co-chairman of the TranregioSFB TRR225 “Biofabrication”, Member of the review board “biomaterials” of the DFG, Advisory Board Member of German Association for Resource Efficiency and Additive Manufacturing (GRAT), co-founder and shareholder of AMSilk GmbH, groupleader of the Neue Materialien Bayreuth GmbH (NMB), and Director of BayHost (Bavarian Academic Center for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe).

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Christoph Sommer

PhD Student

Christoph Sommer (M.Sc.) started his studies in Engineering Science in 2013 at the University of Bayreuth. Besides his passion for engineering he had a huge interest in the fields of biology, biochemistry and biotechnology.

After earning his Master´s Degree in biotechnology and chemical engineering in Bayreuth he entered the research world to explore the passion for Biomaterials and Protein Engineering. Currently, he works as a phD for the chair of biomaterials, where he is focused on fiber processing and morphology optimization. During his studies and research in Bachelor and Master Thesis he gained considerable experience with processing techniques that form fibers out of protein solutions. Therefore, his expertise benefits the production of filter devices within the PURE project.

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iBET

Lisbon, Portugal.

Manuel Carrondo

Team Coordinator

Prof Manuel Carrondo,(Expert Advisor Biotherapeutic Manufacture, IBET) Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Univ Nova de Lisboa. Professor Carrondo is graduated in chemical engineering from Universidade do Porto, Portugal (1971). He worked at Tuborg Brewery (Copenhagen) and Galp Oil Refinery (Porto) as a chemical engineer and at Plano (Lisboa) as a project designer. In 1979 he obtained a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Imperial College London. After his Habilitation in 1991 he became a Full Professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in biochemical engineering. In 1985 he created IBET as an interface to transfer to industry/economy the knowledge existing in some chemical/biological/chemical engineering departments in the three Lisbon Universities.

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André Nascimento

Researcher

André Nascimento is an Associate Researcher at iBET developing functions of project manager.
André holds a PhD in Biotechnology and Biosciences, graduated in Biochemistry, and has a
master’s in biotechnology. His PhD project was focused on the downstream process development
of antibody derivatives, developed at Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon, Portugal) under the
supervision of Professor Ana Azevedo, with part of it performed under the supervision of Professor
Steven Cramer, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY, USA). Among other studies, his work
included the design of peptide affinity ligands and study of multimodal ligands for the purification
of Fab fragments.
After a period at Hovione, a pharmaceutical CDMO, where he developed work as Analytical
chemist, André joined iBET Late-Stage R&D and Bioproduction Unit in 2021. Since then, he has
been involved in different R&D and production projects chiefly focused on the upstream and
downstream processes of viral vectors, including analytical development. His activities include
managing and execution of projects in a tight collaboration with both industry and academia.

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Cristina Peixoto

Researcher

Cristina Peixoto graduated in Applied Chemistry New University of Lisbon (UNL) and she holds a PhD in Engineering Sciences from Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica Biológica (ITQB) UNL. Working in Animal Cell Technology since 1996, her PhD contributed to the establishment of several scalable purification processes for complex biopharmaceuticals, mainly virus and VLPs for vaccine and gene therapy. Since 2009 she is the Head of the Downstream Process Development lab at Animal Cell Technology Unit of iBET. Coordinated more than 12 research contract projects with Industrial partners, some of the processes developed are nowadays in GMP for phase I and II. She was PI in 2 FCT projects and invited lecturer in PhD and Master Programs. She published over 60 manuscripts in refereed international journals.

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Eduardo Almeida

MSc Student

Eduardo Almeida is a master’s student from the Downstream Process Development Lab at iBET’s Animal Cell Technology Unit.

Holding a BSc in Cell And Molecular Biology from NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA), his current research is focused on alternative strategies for the purification of viral vectors and other biomolecules.

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Past member

· Supun Mohotti – Bayreuth University

· Rupert Tscheliessnig – University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences

· Charlotte Leonhardt – Bayreuth University

· Amelie Lindner – Bayreuth University

· José Dinis – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Carina Esteves – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Arménio Barbosa – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Petra Albuquerque – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Margarida Dias – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Henrique Costa – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Ana Spencer – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Claudia Lacombe – University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences

· Rita Faísca – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Hakan Onur – Nova School of Science and Technology

· Jéssica Rodrigues – Nova School of Science and Technology

People

NOVA School of Science and Technology

Cecília Roque

Fernanda Llussá

Catarina Domingos

Paula Urze

Carolina Natal

Carlos Costa

Bárbara Diogo

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences

Alois Jungbauer

Alexander Zollner

Birgit Wiltschi

Bayreuth University

Thomas Scheibel

Christoph Sommer

iBET

Manuel Carrondo

André Nascimento

Cristina Peixoto

Eduardo Almeida

Past member

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