Speakers

After completing his D.Phil. in 2008 at the University of Oxford, U.K., he undertook postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany, and the ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and worked as a Group Leader at Alfama Lda in Portugal. He started his independent research career in 2013 at the University of Cambridge as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. In 2018 he was appointed University Lecturer (Tenured) and recently has been promoted to Reader (Associate Professor). Gonçalo is the recipient of two European Research Council grants; a starting grant and a proof-of-concept grant, and was awarded the Harrison–Meldola Memorial Prize in 2016 and the MedChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship in 2018, both from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and more recently the 2020 International Chemical Biology Society Award. His research group interests focus on the use of chemistry principles to tackle challenging biological problems for understanding and fight cancer. He is also an entrepreneur, and has co-founded Targ.Tex, a company that is developing a highly-targeted therapy for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme.

Prof. Santos (D.Sc. Tech., Chem. Eng.) is a Full Professor in Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, Head of the Nanomedicines and Biomedical Engineering Group, and Director of the Doctoral Program in Drug Research at the Faculty of Pharmacy, at the University of Helsinki. He is also a Fellow Member of Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE), the Director of the FinPharmaNet (The Network of Drug Research Doctoral Programmes in Finland), Chair of Controlled Release Society Focus Group in Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Delivery, and Chairman and co-founder of Capsamedix Oy. Prof. Santos research interests include the development of nanoparticles/nanomedicines for biomedical applications. Prof. Santos is co-author of more than 350 publications (+10700 citations; h-index = 61), and more than 260 conference proceedings/abstracts. He has given over 175 invited talks at prestigious conferences, universities and schools around the world. Prof. Santos has received a number of prestigious awards and grants, such as the "Talent Prize in Science" attributed by the Portuguese Government in 2010, the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (1.5 M€) in 2013 and ERC Proof-of-Concept in 2018, the Young Researcher Award in 2013 attributed by the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Helsinki, the Academy of Finland Award for Social Impact in 2016, and is currently the coordinator of H2020 MSCA-ITN-EJD network (~4.1 M€). 

Leila graduated in Chemistry (MSc) at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal in 2008. In 2014 she completed a PhD in physical chemistry at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France. This research was completed between the Santini group in CPE Lyon, the Costa Gomes group at Université Blaise Pascale and the French Institute of Petroleum. Her thesis was awarded the 2018 European Federation of Chemical Engineering Excellence Award in Fluid Separations.

The next 4 years were dedicated to the Fourmentin group (ULCO, France), a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in the Holbrey group and an InvestNI PoC project in the Manesiotis group (Queen’s University Belfast, UK). 

In 2018 Leila was awarded a 5-year Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship. The Moura group focuses on the development of sustainable materials to reduce the environmental impact of gas separation and water purification operations. Leila is a member of QUILL, Queen’s University Belfast Ionic Liquid Laboratories.

Pedro Vidinha graduated in Biotechnology Engineering at Lusófona University in 2001 and obtained is Ph.D. from the NOVA University of Lisbon in 2007. After that he stayed at REQUIMTE for four years during his Post-Doc in Green Chemistry working with Ion liquids and supercritical fluids. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Chemistry Institute of the University of São Paulo working with the development of CO2 and Biomass valorization processes under supercritical conditions.