Catarina Luis is currently a PhD student in Biomedicine at the University of Aveiro, Portugal where she is developin her work at the Virus Host-Cell Interactions Laboratory from the Institute of Biomedicine (iBiMED). She holds a bachelor degree in Biology (University of Aveiro, Portugal) and a master’s degree in Molecular Biomedicine (University of Aveiro, Portugal). During her bachelor, she spent a semester of curricular volunteering at the Functional Plant Biology Laboratory (Department of Biology, University of Aveiro). She followed the annual curricular research at the same laboratory, and was involved in a project entitled "Effect of Vitamin B6 on the Control of Pine Pitch Canker". This project, which aimed to explore the potential of vitamin B6 as a fungicide against Fusarium circinatum, the pathogen that cause pine canker, improved her expertise in microbiology, plant physiology and biochemistry, and allowed her to conduct experiments autonomously at in vitro and in vivo environments. Despite her passion for microbiology and plant sciences, she decided to pursue a master’s degree in Molecular Biomedicine and join the Virus-Host Cell Interactions Laboratory to perform her final thesis. This decision marked the beginning of an exploratory project in collaboration with an international parent-driven association on Peroxisome Biogenesis Disorders. This project entitled “Uncovering the impact of peroxisome biogenesis deficiencies on the susceptibility to influenza A virus infections” involved the study of the susceptibility of fibr She holds a bachelor degree in Biology (University of Aveiro, Portugal) and a master’s degree in Molecular Biomedicine (University of Aveiro, Portugal). During her bachelor, she spent a semester of curricular volunteering at the Functional Plant Biology Laboratory (Department of Biology, University of Aveiro). She followed the annual curricular research at the same laboratory, and was involved in a project entitled "Effect of Vitamin B6 on the Control of Pine Pitch Canker". This project, which aimed to explore the potential of vitamin B6 as a fungicide against Fusarium circinatum, the pathogen that cause pine canker, improved her expertise in microbiology, plant physiology and biochemistry, and allowed her to conduct experiments autonomously at in vitro and in vivo environments. Despite her passion for microbiology and plant sciences, she decided to pursue a master’s degree in Molecular Biomedicine and join the Virus-Host Cell Interactions Laboratory to perform her final thesis. This decision marked the beginning of an exploratory project in collaboration with an international parent-driven association on Peroxisome Biogenesis Disorders. This project entitled “Uncovering the impact of peroxisome biogenesis deficiencies on the susceptibility to influenza A virus infections” involved the study of the susceptibility of fibroblasts from a PEX10-deficient patient to be infected by influenza A virus. This work gave her expertise in molecular biology (RT-qPCR, immunoblotting, mammalian cell transfection), biochemistry, virology (production of viruses, infection procedures, plaque assays), cell biology (mammalian cell culture, immunofluorescence) and fluorescence microscopy (Zeiss AxioImager Z1) techniques. Joining this dynamic and internationally-driven lab also gave her the opportunity to attend two summer schools, where she learned more about viruses and RNA biology, the most important international conference on peroxisomes, a writing workshop promoted by Nature Masterclasses and an international conference on virology, where she presented her work as a first-authored poster. After completing her master's, Catarina won a research fellowship at the Bioenergetics Laboratory at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, where she worked on the expression and purification of respiratory chain proteins from antibiotic-resistant bacteria.