I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Biology and my Master degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology, both at the University of Coimbra. During my bachelor's I joined the Centre for Functional Ecology for a 6-month voluntary internship in the project "Diversity of fungal species in ancient parchments collections of the Archive of the University of Coimbra", under the supervision of professor António Portugal, where I first gained experience in molecular biology techniques. During my Master thesis I joined the Neuronal Circuits and Behaviour group to study the impact of early-life stress on microglia and inhibitory neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex, under the supervision of Doctor Ana Luísa Cardoso. Throughout this period, I gained experience in numerous techniques including immunohistochemistry and confocal imaging, animal behaviour assays, cellular morphology analysis and 3D reconstruction, qRT-PCRs, as well as whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology. After finishing my Master degree, I took a 3-month course on "Scientific Research Methodologies", with a FCT scholarship, where I had the opportunity to continue the investigation started in my Master thesis. After spending 8 months working as a laboratory technician at the COVID-19 laboratory of University of Coimbra, I was given the opportunity to go back to the NCBL group to work as a research technician in a very innovative and interesting project employing patient-derived immunocompetent brain organoids to study the disease mechanisms of frontotemporal dementia. This far I have been able to improve my electrophysiology skills, being now able to perform this technique both in acute animal brain slices and in human brain organoids. Additionally, I have acquired several new skills, including the isolation of human fibroblasts from human skin biopsies, reprogram and culture induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), differentiate these cells into human brain organoids and microglial cells that can be combined to originate immunocompetent brain organoids, and perform analysis of these organoids employing western blot, flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry.