Flávia S C Rodrigues

Flávia Rodrigues is a PhD student at Center of Physics and Engineering of Advanced Materials (CeFEMA), a research unit at Instituto Superior Técnico. In 2017, Flávia Rodrigues received her BSc degree from the ESAC in Biotechnology. During her BSc internship she was focus on study a role of the potential neuroprotective effect of minocycline on the retina of an animal model of diabetes. In 2019, Flávia Rodrigues received her MSc degree from the UC in Biochemistry. During her Master's thesis, she was focus in therapeutic strategies combined for hepatocellular carcinoma mediated by nanosystems, she tested this system in terms of biocompatibility in cancer cell lines. During 2020 year, she was a research fellow at Coimbra Institute for Clinical and Biomedical Research (iCBR). Her fellowship was from Brain Health 2020 project. She was focus on a specific part of that project, intitle: New targets and therapies for retinal diseases. During that year she was able to publish 2 articles. For over a year, she has been working on her PhD, namely “Towards the Portable Artificial Kidney: design and mass transfer of a hemocompatible membrane device for blood purification”. First, she was focus on the design and fabrication of membrane housings with well-defined microfluidic flow channels using 3D CAD design (Onshape®) and 3D printing technology. The other part of her work has focused on the membrane fabrication of blood contacting medical devices and hemocompatibility assays. Flávia Rodrigues has a multidisciplinary career. She is expert in several laboratorial techniques, namely: 1) molecular biology; 2) cell line cultures; 3) quantification of single molecules techniques; 4) microscopy; 5) animal handling (Course in Laboratory Animal Science); 6) 3D CAD design (Onshape®); 7) membrane fabrication for blood contacting medical devices; and 8) hemocompatibility assays. Furthermore, she has disseminated her work to the general public (e.g. European Researchers' Night, posters and oral presentations) in science communication activities. She has good communication and teamwork skills.