Cristina C. Barrias graduated in Chemical Engineering at Faculty of Engineering of UPorto (FEUP, 1997), and got her PhD on Engineering Sciences in the field of Biomaterials & Regenerative Medicine (UP, 2005). Her PhD studies were performed at INEB-Instituto de Engenharia Biomedica and IBMC, and she was visiting researcher at INSERM U443 (UBordeaux-FR). She did a postdoc at INEB/IBMC in collaboration with the UNevada-Reno, US. Since 2017, she is PI at i3S/INEB and Adjunct Professor at Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas Abel Salazar (ICBAS, UP). Her group at i3S focuses on the development of bioengineered microenvironments to promote controlled 3D cell assembly into microtissues. These are being explored as building blocks for cell-based regenerative therapies and advanced 3D in vitro models