I am a young researcher currently enrolled in the Structural Biochemistry PhD program at NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA). I have a PhD studentship from FCT-MCTES to develop my project entitled “Engineering mucin-1 O-glycodomains to block aberrant interactions between tumour-glycans and lectins” between (Bio)Molecular Structure and Interactions by NMR Lab (UCIBIO, FCT NOVA; supervisor: Filipa Marcelo) and Sandra van Vliet’s Group (VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands; co-supervisor: Sandra van Vliet). I graduated in Biochemistry (BSc) from FCT NOVA in 2019 with a final grade of 18 out of 20. For that reason, I was awarded with a merit scholarship by the Department of Chemistry of FCT NOVA. During my BSc I performed two short internships in two different research labs: (Bio)Molecular Structure and Interactions by NMR Lab at FCT NOVA, under the supervision of Prof. Eurico Cabrita and Dr Jorge Dias; and the Cell Signalling in Drosophila lab at ITQB NOVA, under the guidance of Dr Pedro Domingos and Dr Fátima Cairrão. For my final BSc project (one semester), I returned to the (Bio)Molecular Structure and Interactions by NMR Lab at FCT NOVA under the supervision of Dr Filipa Marcelo to perform a project entitled "Enzymatic synthesis and structural analysis of MUC1 glycopeptides aberrantly expressed in cancer". Recently, part of my work was included in an open-access publication in the J. Am. Chem. Soc. (JACS Au, 2022, 2, 631-645). From September 2019 to January 2022, I accomplished my MSc at FCT NOVA in the Biochemistry program, finishing with a grade of 19 out of 20. My MSc dissertation was evaluated with the maximum grade of 20. For that achievement, I was awarded by FCT NOVA the distinctions of “Best student in the Master in Biochemistry from FCT NOVA in 2020/2021” and “Best student from FCT NOVA in 2020/2021”, and by DGES-Portugal I was awarded a Merit scholarship. Given my interest in the glycochemistry and glycobiology fields, I decided to accomplish my master thesis investigating the molecular recognition of sialic acid containing glycoconjugates by Siglecs using NMR spectroscopy. Benefiting from a short-term scientific mission (STSM) of COST Action Glyconanoprobes, during my thesis work I had the opportunity to perform a three-week internship at the Chemical Glycobiology lab at CICbioGUNE (Bilbao, Spain) led by Prof Dr Jiménez-Barbero to be trained in the expression and purification protocols for Siglecs. During my MSc I also got the chance to be a first author of a review article focused on the use of NMR and molecular modelling techniques to study the molecular recognition of sialic acids by siglecs, viruses and bacteria (Front. in Mol. Biosc. 2021, 8, 727847). Moreover, I had the opportunity to communicate my thesis results in two specialized international conferences with a poster communication in the "10th GERMN biennial NMR meeting & 9th IberoAmerican NMR meeting & 7th Iberian NMR meeting"; and with a flash presentation in the "6th Latin American Glycobiology Congress". Part of my work was integrated in a journal article on Nature Communications (Nat Comm, 2023, 14, 1). Between my master’s program and my PhD project (February-September 2022) I worked as a research fellow in the project of Dr Helena Coelho “Interrogating Salmonella/host-glycans crosstalk: Structure-functional approach”. Since then I have been participating in several courses and conferences under the structural biochemistry and glycobiology fields.