Academic Degrees:

1999   PhD in Cell Biology, University College of London, UK.

  Thesis Title: Cell cycle and checkpoint regulation of the budding yeast S-phase

                        promoting factor Dbf4.

1994   Post-Graduation: Programa Gulbenkian de Doutoramento em BIologia e Medicina

1993   Licenciatura in Biology, University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Publications:

PubMed/NCBI: Link.

Google Scholar: Link.

ResearchGate: Link.

ResearchID: Link.

ORCID: Link.

Grants and Awards:

Grants:

2012-2015: FCT (PTDC/SAU-ORG/116826/2010), Portugal.

2012-2015: FCT (PTDC/SAU-ONC/116821/2010), Portugal.

2011-2014: FCT (PTDC/BIA-EVF/114460/2009), Portugal.

2010-2013: FCT (PTDC/BIA-BCM/099367/2008), Portugal.

2008-2011: FCT (PTDC/BIA-BCM/67261/2006), Portugal.

2007-2010: FCT (PTDC/SAU-OBD/66438/2006), Portugal.

2006-2010: Association for International Cancer Research (Ref: 06-396), UK.

Awards:

2013: Fritz Anders Lecture. European Society for Pigment Cell Research.

2013: FCT Investigator.

2012: HHMI International Early Career Scientist, USA.

2011: Best Paper award - Portuguese Society for Human Genetics.

2011: Gold Medal of Merit of Oeiras Council, Portugal.

2010: Simbiontes award in Oncobiology, VAC, ArCo and Portuguese Institute for Oncology.

2009: Pfizer Award for Basic Research, Portugal.

2008: Best Poster award (to Hugo Almeida) - EMBO telomere meeting, Switzerland.

2008: FCT Ciência 2007.

2007: FCT Career Development

Peer Review and editorial Work:

Acted as referee and co-referee for several ISI journals.

Since 2014 - Member of the FCT Scientific Council for Life and Health Sciences

Since 2013 - Member of the National Council of Oncology (advisory board to the Ministry of Health).

Since 2011 - Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group).

Since 2008 - Member of the FCT fellowship evaluation board in Health Sciences.

Since 2006 - Reviewer for the U.K. Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, The Wellcome Trust, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche and Fondation ARC pour la recherche sur le cancer, the Italian Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti and University Research Project Programme.

Biography:

    Miguel was born in Lisbon on May 22nd, 1970. He graduated in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon (1988-1993). He attended the final year of his degree at the School of Biological Sciences in Manchester, under the Erasmus program, where he cloned G1 cyclins from C. albicans. Upon arrival to Portugal, he joined the first edition of the Gulbenkian PhD Programme in Biology and Medicine (1993-1994).

    His PhD research focused on the cell cycle regulation of DNA replication using S. cerevisiae as a model system and having John Diffley as his supervisor (ICRF/Clare Hall labs). For his postdoctoral research, he joined Julie Cooper’s lab in 1999 as her first postdoc (first at UCHSC in Denver and later, in 2002, at CRUK/LIF in London) to study telomeres, now using S. pombe as a model system, as it was becoming apparent the closeness in chromosome structure between fission yeast and higher eukaryotes.

    In April 2006, he joined the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência to head the Telomere and Genome Stability Laboratory. In 2010, the lab added zebrafish as a multicellular model system to investigate the role of telomere dysfunction at the organism level. His research interests lie on chromosome biology, how they are stably inherited and, upon dysfunction, how they contribute to ageing and disease.