Our team members are at the core of what makes MICC-CNC such a unique and fulfilling place to work.
Luísa Cortes holds a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Coimbra and a Master’s degree in Biochemical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon. For her Master’s thesis, supervised by Prof. Isabel Sá Correia, she investigated the phosphoglucomutase enzyme involved in the synthesis of gellan gum, a product of the bacterium Sphingomonas paucimobilis [Cortes L*, Videira P*, et al. (2000) Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 66: 2252-2258].
Luísa Cortes earned her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Coimbra under the supervision of Prof. Euclides Pires, focusing on the role of pollen proteases in the early stages of allergic responses [Cortes L., et al. (2006) J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 118(4):878-84]. Following her PhD, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Ana Luísa Carvalho at the CNC – Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, as a postdoctoral fellow. There, she studied the molecular mechanisms underlying Machado-Joseph disease (MJD), the most common dominantly inherited ataxia caused by a polyglutamine (polyQ) expansion in ataxin-3 (Atx3) [Cortes L., et al. (2009) PLoS ONE 4(6): e5834].
Currently, Luísa Cortes is a Principal Investigator and the Coordinator of the Advanced Optical Microscopy Laboratory at the University of Coimbra. Throughout her career, she has secured independent funding and contributed to numerous research projects by integrating biochemical studies with innovative imaging methodologies.
In addition to her research and leadership roles, Luísa Cortes is the National Coordinator of the PPBI – Portuguese Platform of BioImaging, a national research infrastructure. She also chairs the Training Working Group and serves on the Executive Committee of the Core Technologies for Life Sciences Association (CTLS).
Since 2007, Luisa is the Head of the MICC – Microscopy Imaging Center of Coimbra at CNC-UC.
Margarida graduated in Biochemistry and completed her PhD in Cellular Biology at the University of Coimbra in 2007. After working as a Post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Neurosciences and Cell Biology of Coimbra, she was invited to lecture classes as an Invited Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra from 2011 to 2013. Afterwards, she joined de Microscopy Facility of the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of Coimbra either as a Post-Doctoral Researcher (2013-2018) or as Doctoral Investigator (2019 to present).
Tatiana Catarino, PhD, works as a technician in the Microscopy Imaging Center of Coimbra (MICC), since 2022. Tatiana graduated in Biology and completed her doctoral degree in Cellular Biology at the University of Coimbra. In 2017, she became a member of the MICC team at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (MICC-CNC), as a post-doc fellow. Since then she has been committed in training users to operate confocal, and epifluorescence microscopes and helping on implementation of advanced imaging techniques, as well as on the design of robust image analysis protocols.
