Paula Alves's Biography

Paula Alves, Principle Investigator, Universidade Nova De Lisboa

Paula M Alves graduated in Biochemistry at the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, and holds a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica Biológica da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Working in Animal Cell Technology since 1990, her PhD contributed to the establishment of 3D in vitro models of Brain Cells for metabolic trafficking studies. She did part of her PhD studies at the NMR Center-Sintef, Trondheim Hospital, Norway and at the NMR Laboratory of the Chemistry Department of Bremen University. She is an Independent Researcher and Principal Investigator of ITQB-New University of Lisbon since 2005. Since, January 2007 she is Head of the Animal Cell Technology Unit form ITQB-UNL/IBET, where she coordinates the work of three laboratories (http://tca.itqb.unl.pt). She is Invited Associate Professor at the New University of Lisbon since 2011 and CEO, IBET since March 2012. Her current research is focused on understanding cell metabolism to improve the efficiency of bioprocesses and at developing new tools and technologies for pre-clinical research. More recently this expertise was expanded to generate expansion and differentiation of stem cells (human embryonic and adult) in bioreactors. The Unit she coordinates uses Animal Cell Technology for research and development in particular for (i) production of complex biopharmaceuticals such as viral vectors, vaccines and recombinant proteins (ii) development of 3D culture systems for toxicity testing using primary cells and stem cells in bioreactors (iii) expand systems biology approaches to organize the complexity of the processes involved in the research described in (i) and (ii).