Diana Rafaela Reis de Sousa (0311-CF27-6193)

Curriculum Vitae

Diana Rafaela Reis de Sousa

PhD student from the Cyanobacterial Natural Products (CNP) team at CIIMAR (Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research). Passionate about discovery of new natural products using genomics and synthetic biology. Awarded a PhD Scholarship by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Won the “Best Internship Award” from the Blue Young Talent plus program promoted by CIIMAR with the work developed during the master thesis. Experienced in: cyanobacterial natural products; biosynthetic pathways; heterologous expression in E. coli; bioinformatic analysis of metagenomics data; genetic manipulation of cyanobacteria and E. coli; compound identification through LC-MS; compound isolation using a LC-MS approach; structural characterization through LC-MS and NMR; and maintenance of cyanobacterial cultures. Participated on the research “Discovery and Heterologous Expression of Microginins from Microcystis aeruginosa LEGE 91341” published in ACS Synthetic Biology. Presented the developed research in 4 national congresses – IJUP 2022 by the University of Porto (1 oral presentation and 1 poster presentation); and Blue Think Conference 2020, 2022 and 2023 by CIIMAR (3 posters) – and 4 international congresses – Microbial Secondary Metabolites in Microbiomes (1 poster), Directing Biosynthesis VII (1 poster); Directing Biosynthesis VI (1 poster); and XIII European Congress on Marine Natural Products and XVII International Symposium on Marine Natural Products (1 poster). Volunteered on field and science outreach activities for the TREC expedition during its stop at CIIMAR. Participated in science dissemination activities, namely, Mostra UP and CIIMAR open day. Holds a BSc degree in Biochemistry by the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP) and the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Porto (ICBAS), and a MSc degree in Applications in Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology from FCUP. Currently, enrolled on the Biomedical Sciences Doctoral Program at ICBAS.

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Identification

Personal identification

Full name: Diana Rafaela Reis de Sousa

Citation names

Sousa, Diana

Author identifiers

Ciência ID: 0311-CF27-6193
ORCID iD: 0009-0007-3850-9362

Email addresses

dsousa@ciimar.up.pt (Professional)
dianar2sousa@gmail.com (Professional)

Addresses

Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental (CIIMAR). Avenida General Norton de Matos, S/N, 4450-208, Matosinhos, Matosinhos, Portugal (Professional)

Knowledge fields

Natural sciences - Biological Sciences - Biochemistry
Natural sciences - Biological Sciences
Natural sciences - Biological Sciences - Biology
Exact Sciences - Chemical Sciences

Languages

Language	Speaking	Reading	Writing	Listening	Peer-review
Portuguese (Mother tongue)
English

Education

	Degree	Classification
2024/01 - 2028/02 Ongoing	Doctoral Program in Biomedical Sciences (Doutoramento) Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Portugal "Cryptic secondary metabolites from uncultured cyanobacteria" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
2020/09 - 2022/12/09 Concluded	Applications in Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology (Mestrado) Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Ciências, Portugal "Culture Independent Discovery of New Cyanobacterial Natural Products" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	18
2017/09 - 2020/07 Concluded	Biochemistry (Licenciatura) Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Ciências, Portugal Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Portugal "Genetic and Chemical Diversity of a Novel Halogenase Class" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	15

Affiliation

Science

	Category Host institution	Employer
2024/02/01 - Current	Research Trainee (Research)	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal
	Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal (...)
2022/08/01 - 2024/01/31	Researcher (Research)	Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
	Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2021/09/01 - 2022/06/30	Research Trainee (Research)	Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
	Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2019/09 - 2020/09	Research Trainee (Research)	Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
	Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal

Projects

Contract

	Designation	Funders
2025/02/01 - 2026/07/31	Discovery of natural products from cyanobacterial orphan biosynthetic gene clusters 2023.11884.PEX 10.54499/2023.11884.PEX PhD Student Fellow Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Ongoing
2025/01/01 - 2026/06/30	Cyanobacteria biofilms microbiome composition and chemical interactions 2023.15022.PEX 10.54499/2023.15022.PEX PhD Student Fellow Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal University of Florida, United States	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Ongoing
2022/08/01 - 2024/01/31	Investigation of a new class of beta-propeller enzymes PTDC/BIA-BQM/5760/2020 Master Student Fellow

Outputs

Publications

Conference poster

Sousa, Diana; Oliveira, Paulo; Ferreira, Eunice A; Viehrig, Konrad; Leão, Pedro N.. Corresponding author: Leão, Pedro N.. "Expanding the molecular tools for heterologous expression of cyanobacterial secondary metabolites". Paper presented in Directing Biosynthesis VII, 2024.
Sousa, Diana; Rego, Adriana; Castelo-Branco, Raquel; Leão, Pedro N.. Corresponding author: Leão, Pedro N.. "Expanding the molecular tools for heterologous expression of cyanobacterial secondary metabolites". Paper presented in Microbial Secondary Metabolites in Microbiomes 2024, 2024.
Sousa, Diana; Oliveira, Paulo; Ferreira, Eunice A; Viehrig, Konrad; Leão, Pedro N.. Corresponding author: Leão, Pedro N.. "Expanding the molecular tools for heterologous expression of biosynthetic gene clusters and natural products discovery in Cyanobacteria". Paper presented in Blue Think Conference 2023, 2023.
Sousa, Diana; Rego, Adriana; Castelo-Branco, Raquel; Leão, Pedro N.. Corresponding author: Leão, Pedro N.. "Heterologous expression of a cyanobacterial MAG-derived mvdBGC through DiPaC-SLIC". Paper presented in XIII European Congress on Marine Natural Products and XVII International Symposium on Marine Natural Products, 2023.
Sousa, Diana; Rego, Adriana; Magalhães, Catarina; Leão, Pedro N.. Corresponding author: Leão, Pedro N.. "Metagenome Derived Discovery of NewCyanobacterial Natural Products". Paper presented in Blue Think Conference 2022, 2022.
Sousa, Diana; Eusebio, Nadia; Castelo-Branco, Raquel; Preto, Marco; D'Agostino, Paul; Gulder, Tobias M.; Leão, Pedro N.. Corresponding author: Leão, Pedro N.. "Heterologous expression confirms that the cyanobacterial mic gene cluster is responsible for the biosynthesis of the protease inhibitors microginins". Paper presented in Directing Biosynthesis VI, 2022.
Sousa, Diana; Rego, Adriana; Magalhães, Catarina; Leão, Pedro N.. Corresponding author: Leão, Pedro N.. "Culture-Independent Discovery of New Cyanobacterial Natural Products". Paper presented in IJUP 2022, 2022.
Sousa, Diana; Leão, Pedro N.; Eusebio, Nadia. "Genetic and Chemical Diversity of a Novel Halogenase". Paper presented in Blue Think Conference: Share Science, Spread Knowledge, 2020.
Sousa, Diana; Leão, Pedro N.; Eusebio, Nadia. Corresponding author: Eusebio, Nadia. "Genetic and Chemical Diversity of a Novel Halogenase Class". Paper presented in Blue Think Conference 2020, 2020.
Eusebio, Nadia; Rego, Adriana; Sousa, Diana; Cassell, Samantha; Nakamura, Hitomi; Glasser, Nathaniel; Balskus, Emily; Leão, Pedro N.. "Diversity and distribution of dimetal-carboxylate halogenases in Cyanobacteria". Paper presented in 11th European Workshop on the Biology of Cyanobacteria, 2020.

Journal article

Eusébio, Nádia; Castelo-Branco, Raquel; Sousa, Diana; Preto, Marco; D’Agostino, Paul; Gulder, Tobias A. M.; Leão, Pedro N.. "Discovery and Heterologous Expression of Microginins from Microcystis aeruginosa LEGE 91341". ACS Synthetic Biology 11 10 (2022): 3493-3503. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.2c00389.
Published • 10.1021/acssynbio.2c00389

Activities

Event participation

	Activity description Type of event	Event name Institution / Organization
2025/05/12 - Current	Crash Course MZmine - basics of how to use the bioinformatic tool MZmine to analyse mass spectrometry datasets. Workshop	Crash Course MZmine Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2025/04/24 - Current	Cyanotype workshop - the use of light-sensitive solution to photograph botanics and create nature inspired artwork. Workshop	Herbário Azul Botanical Cyanotype Workshop supported by the BlueBio4Future project Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal Blueberry.Lab, Portugal
2025/04/05 - Current	Technology Illustration - applying tecnhological tools and photography to scientific illustration. Workshop	Scientific Illustration Course - Module 4: Technology Illustration – Technologies in Scientific Illustration Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2025/04/04 - 2025/05/21	Personal balance in work management - how to manage work and everyday life in a healthy manner. Workshop	Personal balance in work management Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal Escola de Hotelaria e Turismo do Porto, Portugal
2025/03/17 - 2025/03/19	Short Course in Bioinformatics - short course on bioinformatics tools for genome and metagenome analysis applied to the discovery of new natural products. Workshop	Short Course in Bioinformatics from the BlueBio for Future ERA chair Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2023/09/12 - 2023/09/12	International Conference in Marine Biotechnology - Conference lectured by experts in marine biotechnology, namely on the areas of: genome- and MS-guided discovery of novel secondary metabolites; bioinformatic analysis of the taxonomical and biosynthetic diversity of complex microbial communities; natural products chemical synthesis; and biorreactors optimization. Conference	International Conference in Marine Biotechnology from the BlueBio for Future ERA chair project Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2023/07/04 - 2023/07/05	Meta_Microbial Workshop - Workshop on techniques for the analysis of complex microbial communities. The workshop covered sequencing techniques, targeted and untargeted metagenomic approaches and basic R statistics for the analysis of microbial communities. Workshop	Meta_Microbial Workshop Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2023/05/29 - 2023/05/31	Short Course in Synthetic Biology - short course on cutting-edge synthetic biology techniques including high-throughput techniques for the discovery of new natural products, heterologous expression and green chemistry. Workshop	Short Course in Synthetic Biology from the BlueBio for Future ERA chair Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2022/09/18 - 2022/09/18	Participation in CIIMAR Open Day to promote the research investigation conducted under the scope of the Propeller project at CIIMAR to the general public Other	CIIMAR Open Day Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal
2022/05/04 - 2022/05/06	Oral communication at IJUP 2022, 04 to 06 of May 2022, Porto, Portugal "Heterologous expression of the mic BGC from the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa LEGE 91341 in E. coli confirms its role in microginin production" Diana SOUSA, Nádia EUSÉBIO, Raquel CASTELO-BRANCO, Marco PRETO, Paul D'AGOSTINO, Tobias M. GULDER, Pedro N. LEÃO Congress	IJUP 2022 Universidade do Porto, Portugal
2022/04/21 - 2022/04/24	Participation in Mostra UP 2022 to promote the research investigation conducted at CIIMAR to future university students Other	Mostra UP 2022 Universidade do Porto, Portugal

Association member

	Society Organization name	Role
2018 - 2024	Tuna Feminina de Ciências da Universidade do Porto
2019 - 2021	Student Body of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto	Vogal of the Sports Department

Distinctions

Award

2022	Best Internship Award BYTplus 2021/2022 Universidade do Porto Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Portugal

Other distinction

2023	PhD Studentship - 2023.01422.BD Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal