Mariana Girão is a Junior Researcher (CEEC7) at CIIMAR (U. Porto, Portugal), holding a PhD in Biomedical Sciences (ICBAS, 2024). She holds a BSc in Aquatic Sciences and an MSc in Cell and Molecular Biology. Since 2015, when she joined CIIMAR as an intern under the Blue Young Talent program, she has been bioprospecting marine bacteria to identify novel molecules with pharmaceutical and industrial applications. During her PhD studies, she conducted two international internships in Fundación MEDINA (Granada, Spain) and at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Paris, France). She has actively contributed to several national and international research projects, presented her research as first author at national and international conferences, authored 16 peer-reviewed publications, and supervised multiple BSc and MSc students from both national and international institutions (academic and non-academic). Mariana is currently Science and Technology Manager of the BlueBio4Future EU ERA Chair in Blue Biotechnology and Bioengineering at CIIMAR, supporting strategic research development, innovation, and scientific communication. She is an active member of the Portuguese Society of Microbiology (SPM).