Marta Valido Narciso is a Project Manager at AccelBio. Before joining the team, Marta worked at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich) where she started as a Project Manager of the MSCA Innovative Training Network (ITN) “Cell2Cell”. With the end of the ITN, she then progressed to the position of EU Grants Administrative Officer in the Research Finance Department of LMU Munich’s central administration. Both as Project Legal and Financial Signatory, she managed LMU’s European Commission-financed projects mostly within the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programmes. Marta has a life sciences background holding a BSc in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Sciences of University of Lisbon and a MSc in Biomedical Research from the Faculty of Medicine of University of Lisbon. The latter was in collaboration with Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM), where she also briefly worked as a laboratory technician before transitioning to her current managerial roles.

"Diana Gonçalves holds a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Sciences and a master's degree in Microbiology from the University of Aveiro. She is a young research scientist with 2 years of hands-on laboratory experience in biochemistry, microbiology and host–pathogen interactions. Her master's thesis project was at the Institute of Biomedicine (iBiMED) of University of Aveiro, in the Viral Host-Cell Interactions Laboratory, where she researched host’s antiviral response against influenza A virus, in the context of developing new host-directed therapies.
She worked within a multidisciplinary research team and presented her work in two scientific poster presentations. Her research interests include microbial pathogenesis and host–microbe interactions."

Biochemist and Materials Scientist with 15+ years of experience in academic and industrial settings of biotech, nanotech, and medtech. Experienced in proof-of-concept designing, roadmap drafting and risk mitigation. Lately, João has been supporting tech teams from early concepts through to development stages.

Mafalda Meunier holds a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Biomedical Sciences. During her master’s thesis she studied the potential of dendritic cells in modulating autologous T lymphocytes responses during infection by Leishmania infantum. Since then, she worked in projects related to immunology and infectious diseases. Currently, she is a research fellow within the Drug Discovery team in a R&D project targeting T cell activity to address inflammation.

Jhenifer Oliveira holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in Biochemistry from NOVA School of Science and Technology. Over the past seven years, her research has been focused on the development and application of spheroid-based 3D cell models as platforms for drug testing, disease modeling, and translational biomedical research. Her work aims to bridge the gap between conventional in vitro assays and more physiologically relevant platforms for translational and preclinical research. Her master's project consisted of implementing and optimizing a 3D hepatic cell model incorporating immune cells that would resemble innate macrophages. The work was carried out at the Advanced Cell Models laboratory – iBET, where she acquired experience in cell culture techniques and 3D models. In 2021 she started a PhD in Biomedicine at OncoNanoLab - Nova Medical School where she developed 3D cell models of breast cancer to test different nanotherapies while comparing with other in vitro and in vivo models.

Inês de Andrade Saraiva holds a BSc in Applied Chemistry from NOVA School of Science and Technology and an MSc in Biochemistry for Health from NOVA Medical School, where she participated in an Exchange Programme at the School of Pharmacy, University College London (UK), and conducted her thesis at IPATIMUP/i3S, University of Porto. She later returned to i3S as a research fellow. Her experience covers areas such as virology (including COVID-19 research), cancer research, biochemistry, and molecular biology. She also completed a specialization in Clinical Trials and Medical Writing at Hospital da Luz and W4Research. Currently, she is a final-year PhD student in Nuno Santos’ Lab at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon. Actively engaged in science communication, she volunteers with Cartas com Ciência and authored the award-winning essay “Um silêncio necessário à compreensão humana”, published in Público as part of the BIAL-University of Lisbon 30 Years Award initiative.