Luísa got her Chemistry Degree in 2012, having carried out both her Graduation and Master Thesis in our group at the DQB-FCUP. She stayed in the group to carry out her Doctoral Thesis devoted to the synthesis and evaluation of novel peptide-drug conjugates with potential interest against neglected tropical diseases (NTD), supervised by Paula, Nuno Vale and Marina Pinheiro, both from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto. Luísa concluded her PhD in April 2019, after which she stayed as a Research Associatein PG's lab until November 2021.
Luísa is currently working in a multinational company of the Peptide&Protein Technology sector.

Cátia got her Chemistry degree in 2003 and her M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry in 2005, having carried out both her Graduation and Master Theses in Organic Synthetic Chemistry, at the DQB-FCUP. She then moved to France, to carry out her Ph.D. thesis in Computational Medicinal Chemistry at the highly reputed ITODYS research centre of the Université Paris 7 - Paris Diderot. In 2008, Cátia was awarded the L'Oreal France - Unesco 2008 prize for her excellent scientific skills and doctoral research work. Cátia joined our group as a post-doctoral research fellow in 2009, being in charge of all computational studies of the team in the field of antimalarial drug development. Cátia has been supervisor or co-supervisor of PhD and MSc students in our lab. Cátia has been awarded three research grants by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, namely, EXPL/QEQCOM/0927/2013 on antimalarial drug discovery, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-31798 and PTDC/ASP-PLA/2440/2021, respectively devoted to repurposing antimicrobial peptides towards applications in the agro-food industry, and to development of novel peptaibols to fight plant pathogens.
Cátia recently embraced a new challenge in a multinational company of the Peptide&Protein Technology sector.

Nuno got his Chemistry degree in 2003, having carried out his Graduation Thesis under the group's leader guidance. After having worked for nearly one year in a well-known Portuguese Pharma company, BIAL, he rejoined Paula's group to carry out his Ph.D. thesis in Medicinal Chemistry, devoted to the synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation of peptidomimetic derivatives of the antimalarial drug Primaquine. From 2008 to 2015, Nuno was a post-doctoral research fellow, then a Research Associate ("Investigador FCT"), in our group at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Faculty of Sciences, where he stayed until the end of January 2017.

Mariana was an M.Sc. student of Biomedical Engineering at the Escola Superior de Biotecnologia da Universidade Católica Portuguesa whose thesis has been partially developed in our lab, in collaboration with Instituto de Engenharia Biomédica, INEB. Mariana stayed in our group to carry out her Ph.D. thesis where click-chemistry based approaches were employed to graft antimicrobial peptides onto chitosan, supervised by Paula GOMES and Cristina MARTINS from INEB. Mariana got her PhD degree on the past 2nd of May 2018, after a bright discussion of her thesis, titled "CLAMP - CLick chemistry as a tool to create AntiMicrobial Peptide-based materials".

Mary, a Brazilian chemist, recipient of a Doctoral grant from FCT, joined Paula's lab from 2005 to 2008 to carry out part of her Doctoral Thesis, devoted to the synthesis and characterization of amino acid derivatives of chitosan with potential biological and environmental interest.

José Rafael is a Brazilian biochemist who stayed in our group from Feb.2015 to Aug.2015, to work on solid-phase synthesis of peptides inspired in snake toxins, as part of his PhD project in the frame of the Doctoral Programme in Functional and Molecular Biology at the State University of Campinas, Brazil.

Joana is a Chemical Engineer who enrolled in the Doctoral Programme in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Porto. Her PhD research work related to the synthesis of self-assembling peptides and peptide-based materials for diverse applications. She was supervised by Prof. Luís Gales@Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular and co-supervised by the group's leader, Joana carried out all work related to peptide synthesis, purification and analysis in our lab.

Joana has a Master degree in Applied Microbiology, and was enrolled in the Doctoral Programme in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Porto, to pursue a doctoral thesis devoted to development of antifungal peptides and respective delivery nanosystems, for treatment of vulvovaginal candidiasis. Joana was supervised by José das Neves and Bruno SARMENTO, from the Nanomedicines and Translational Drug Delivery group at i3S-INEB, and by Paula GOMES, at FCUP.

Bianca got her Chemistry degree in Venezuela and her Master degree in the U.S. (Northeastern University, Boston MA). She has been a part of our team while working on her Ph.D. thesis on the synthesis, biological and computational evaluation of potential dual-action antimalarials (2010-2013).

Cledir, a Brazilian chemist, worked under Paula's supervision from 2002 to 2007 as a Ph.D. student, being a recipient of a Doctoral grant from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal). His Doctoral Thesis was focused on the synthesis and reactivity of dipeptide derivatives of hydroxylated drugs as potential cyclization-activated prodrugs.

Cláudia is a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and M.Sc. in Chemistry who worked in our lab in 2016/17 as a pre-doctoral research assistant devoted to the solid-phase synthesis of peptides and peptide-drug conjugates.

Joana, a Portuguese chemist, worked in Paula's lab from 2006 to 2007 to carry out part of her Master Thesis, devoted to the development and validation of HPLC methods for the analysis of substances of Pharmaceutical or Environmental relevance. Joana's work was partly carried out on the Quality Control facility of the Portuguese Pharma Company, BIAL.

Luís, a Portuguese pharmaceutist, worked in Paula's lab from 2004 to 2006 to carry out part of his Master Thesis, devoted to the quantitative determination, by spectroscopic and potentiometric techniques, of the acidity constants of primaquine imidazolidin-4-ones.

Raquel, a Portuguese chemist, worked in Paula's lab from 2001 to 2003 to carry out her Master Thesis on the synthesis of imidazolidin-4-one derivatives of the antimalarial drug primaquine.

Lorenzo is an italian M.Sc. in Chemistry who carried out an internship in our group in 2014-2015, focused on both solid phase peptide synthesis and classical organic synthesis of potential anti-parasitic agents.

Pedro is a Portuguese chemist who carried out an internship in our group, focused on solid phase synthesis of bioactive peptides and peptide-drug conjugates.

Filipa is a Biomedical Engineer who joined our group as a pre-doctoral research assistant from Feb.2016 to Jun.2017, to work in the synthesis and covalent grafting of antimicrobial peptides onto chitosan-based biomaterials.

Aslin is an Armenian Chemist from Turkey who got her Chemistry Degree in 2017 and carried out her Bachelor's Degree Graduation Thesis on Liquid Crystals. In order to get more experience on laboratory field and learn more about Peptides before she started pursuing her MSc degree, Aslin came to our laboratory for an Erasmus+ internship under the supervision of Paula GOMES and Cátia TEIXEIRA.

Natália is a Brazilian Pharmaceutist who has recently carried out her MSc Dissertation in Biochemistry in our Lab, devoted to establishment and optimization of a synthetic route towards 4-substituted acridines as potential dual-action antimalarials. Natália remained working in our lab as a Research Assistant in Peptide Chemistry, till she moved to Germany in Nov. 2020, to carry out her PhD Thesis, benefiting from a Marie Curie doctoral grant.

Sílvia, a Portuguese pharmaceutist, worked in Paula's lab from 2001 to 2003 to carry out her Master Thesis on the solid phase total synthesis of antimicrobial peptides from natural origin.

Abigail got her Biochemistry Degree in 2013, having carried out her graduation thesis in our group at the DQB-FCUP. She stayed in the group to carry out her Master Thesis in Biochemistry (2014/15), which was focused on the synthesis of cell-penetrating peptide conjugates of anti-tumoral drugs.

Marta, a Portuguese chemist, worked under Paula's supervision from 2009 to 2010 to work on her Master Thesis on the synthesis and evaluation of heterocyclic-peptide hybrids as potential dual-action antimalarials.

Marta is a Polish M.Sc. in both Biotechnology (2013) and Chemistry (2014) who carried out an internship in our group, devoted to solid-phase approaches to the synthesis of peptide-drug conjugates, in the frame of the Erasmus+ programme.

Miguel Ángel is a Chemist from Valencia, Spain, who worked on his M. Sc. project at Paula's lab, under the frame of the Socrates-Erasmus student mobility programme. Miguel Ángel has performed a comparative study of classical versus microwave-assisted solid-phase peptide synthesis of antimicrobial peptides.

Maria João got her Chemistry degree in 2009, having joined Paula's lab as an M.Sc. student working on the synthesis o novel compounds as potential inhibitors of ITK kinase. She concluded her M.Sc. thesis in November 2011.

Mireia is a chemist from Valencia, Spain, who has been engaged in a 9-month stay in our lab (Oct.2012-Jun.2013), under the ERASMUS interchange programme, to work on solid phase synthesis of cell penetrating peptides.

Sílvia got her Chemistry degree in 2008, taking the Graduation Thesis in Organic Chemistry. In October 2008, she joined Paula's lab as a graduate researcher to work in Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis. Sílvia was devoted to the synthesis of many different types of peptides, from small oligopeptides for modification of nanobiomaterials to large alpha-helical cationic peptides displaying antimicrobial or cell-penetrating properties, till the end of her contract, in 2012.

Joana got her Chemistry degree in 2007, having carried out her Graduation Thesis under Paula's supervision. In 2008, she finished her M.Sc. thesis on the synthesis of dipeptide derivatives of therapeutically relevant amides as potential cyclization-activated prodrugs, also under Paula's guidance. Joana was until November 2011 an assistant researcher in Paula's lab, working on Primaquine-Ferrocene conjugates as potential dual-action antimalarials. She is now a research associate of the Swiss company SpiroChem.

Marta, a Catalonian chemist, worked under Paula's supervision from 2006 to 2007 as a M.Sc. student under the Socrates-Erasmus interchange program. Her Master Thesis was focused on optimization of solid phase methodologies for the synthesis of cell-penetrating peptides.

Joana got her Chemistry Degree from the DQB-FCUP in 2013. She joined our group to carry out her Master Thesis in Chemistry (2014/15), which was devoted to the synthesis and characterization of ionic compounds derived from antimalarial drugs.

Gabriel got his BSc degree in Biochemistry in 2018, and next pursued his MSc degree in Biochemistry, supervised by our former Assistant Researcher Cátia Teixeira, and by Professor Maria Salomé Gomes. Gabriel's thesis was focused on the discovery of new molecules with potential interest against Mycobacteria.

José Ricardo got his Chemistry degree in 2007, taking his Graduation Thesis in Computational Chemistry. In 2009, he joined Paula's lab as a graduate researcher working on the chemical modification of chitosan microspheres for therapeutic applications.

Cláudia, a Portuguese biotechnologist, worked in Paula's lab from 2004 to 2006 to carry out her Master Thesis, devoted to the evaluation of the antimicrobial and antifungal activities of dipeptide esters of acyclovir.

Luiz, a Portuguese chemist, worked in Paula's lab from 2004 to 2005 to carry out part of his Master Thesis, devoted to the development and optimization of synthetic methodologies to prepare oligopeptide derivatives of chitosan.

Gonçalo got his Chemistry degree in 2009, working on his Graduation Thesis at Paula's lab. Gonçalo then joined University of Minho to pursue an M.Sc. in Medicinal Chemistry; his M.Sc. thesis has been partially carried out in Paula's lab and aimed at the modification of tumor-seeking peptides with unnatural fluorescent/metal-chelating amino acids. The thesis was concluded in January 2013.

Gonçalo is a Biochemist from our University, who has worked on a post-graduation research project (Oct.2013-Jun.2014), devoted to the solid phase synthesis of thrombin inhibitor peptides.

Manuela, a Portuguese chemist, worked in Paula's lab from 2001 to 2003 to carry out her Master Thesis on the synthesis and reactivity of dipeptide derivatives of antimalarial sulfonamides and 8-aminoquinolines.

Bea is a Chemist from University of Valencia, Spain, who was engaged in a 9-month stay in our lab (Oct.2013-Jun.2014), under the ERASMUS interchange programme, to work on solid phase peptide synthesis.

Rita got her BSc degree in Chemistry in 2018, and then pursuing her MSc degree in Chemistry, supervised by Professor Maria João Sottomayor, from DQB-FCUP and CIQ-UP, and by our former Assistant Researcher Cátia Teixeira. Rita's thesis was focused on the study of molecular interactions between antimalarial acridines and DNA, using biophysical techniques.

Magda, a Catalonian chemist, worked under Paula's supervision from 2007 to 2008 as a M.Sc. student under the Socrates-Erasmus interchange program. Her Master Thesis was focused on optimization of solid phase methodologies for the synthesis of poly-arginine and alpha-melanotan peptides.

Rita got her Chemistry Degree in 2013, having carried out a post-graduation internship ("PEEC") in our group at the DQB-FCUP. She stayed in the group to carry out her Master Thesis in Chemistry (2014/15), which was devoted to the synthesis of sulfo-tyrosine-containing peptides as potential inhibitors of the tse-tse fly thrombin.

Miguel, a Portuguese chemist, worked under Paula's supervision from 2007 to 2008 to carry out part of his Master Thesis, focused on the synthesis and thermodynamic properties of quinoxaline N-oxides.