Vitor Espirito Santo's Biography

Vitor Espirito Santo, Researcher, IBET – Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica, Oeiras, Portugal

Vítor Espírito Santo graduated in Biomedical Engineering at Univ. of Minho, Portugal (2007) and completed his PhD degree in Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine and Stem cells in 2012 at the 3B’s Research Group, at Univ. of Minho (Portugal) in collaboration with Kyoto University (Japan). His work was focused on the combination of biomaterials and mesenchymal stem cells for regeneration of bone and cartilage tissues. Later in 2013, he joined iBET as a Post-Doc Researcher, working in the development of new complex 3D cancer models for in vitro cell-based assays, drug screening and target validation. Since April 2016, he is a Senior Scientist at the Advanced Cell Models Laboratory from the Animal Cell Technology Unit of iBET and ITQ-NOVA. He is one of the Project Leaders of an IBET-coordinated translational medicine program (INOVA4Health), in association with Lisbon Oncology Hospital. His research efforts led to more than 30 publications in international peer reviewed journals and more than 80 communications in international meetings. Vítor E. Santo is also an invited lecturer in Master and PhD programs of several Portuguese Universities, lecturing in topics of drug delivery, biomaterial design, stem cells, and cell models for pre-clinical research, among others.
We combine the use of 3D cell culture (stem cells, cell lines, patient-derived material), biomaterials and bioreactor technologies to generate cell models more recapitulative of the native tissue niche for pre-clinical research and disease modeling, thus enabling to mimic certain features of tissue development and disease events.