Paulo (P) Oliveira graduated in Biology (2001) at the University of Porto (PT), and completed his PhD studies (2008) at Uppsala University (SE), where he later became Researcher. In 2011, POliveira moved to the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMC, PT) with an FCT post-doc fellowship granted through a competitive call. In 2017, he secured a 5-year contract, becoming Assistant researcher in the framework of the FCT Investigator program. This was a researcher-centered, highly competitive scheme, aimed at supporting high-potential researchers. It provided the proper conditions for him to attract as Principal investigator (PI) early stage researchers (PhD students and post-docs) and research funds (2 from FCT; 1 from U.Porto Innovation), launching the foundations for carrying out his research line independently. In 2022, POliveira moved to the Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR, PT), where he held a Researcher position in PLeão's (twice ERC grantee) lab (CNP). Currently, and since 2023, POliveira is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto. AREA OF SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY: POliveira has devoted his scientific career to the study of cyanobacteria (CB). His research has been dedicated to understanding the fundamentals of cyanobacterial physiology, and cell and molecular biology, striving to engineer them as microbial cell factories. Thus, he is an expert in Molecular microbiology, Genetic engineering, and a pioneer in applying Synthetic biology to CB. During his PhD studies, he worked on solar biofuels, particularly in the transcriptional regulation network of the hydrogen metabolism in CB. Later, he studied cyanobacterial secretion mechanisms of various types of biomolecules. More recently, he started developing his independent research line, investigating biogenesis mechanisms and biological roles of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in CB, and carrying out ground-breaking work towards the direct application of cyanobacterial EVs to fish. POliveira has been a member of national and international research projects, funded by the Nordic Energy Research (1), Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1), Polish National Science Centre (1, ongoing), EU (5, 1 ongoing), FCT (8, 2 ongoing; 2 as PI), and CIIMAR (2, 1 as PI; both ongoing). Participation in projects with international partners expanded his contact network that he has used to visit the labs of PLindblad (SE), IVass (HU) and NCouto (UK). As a result of his scientific activities, he published 42 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and 5 book chapters (23 in Q1), of which he assumed lead (11), senior (12) and/or corresponding authorship (15; 7 in the last 3 years), accumulating a total of 1522 citations (h-index of 23, Scopus). He is also main inventor in 1 deposited international patent. Moreover, POliveira supervised and co-supervised several BSc (9), MSc (7) and PhD (7; 5 concluded in the last 3 years, 2 ongoing) students, as well as post-docs (4). He got involved with 2 international learned societies (GEIVEX, ASM), and serves as peer-reviewer for 22 journals. He is also Editorial Board Member for Marine Drugs, and Review Editor for Frontiers in Microbiology. Moreover, he reviews research project proposals for the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France), and for the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), highlighting his international recognition. POliveira participated in several national and international conferences, with a total of 8 invited and 11 selected oral presentations, and more than 200 posters. As an organizer, he assumed local and scientific responsibilities in national (4) and international (10) workshops and conferences, and he actively participates in science dissemination & communication (average 3 times/year).