Joana Lisboa da Silva Gonçalves graduated in Biochemistry by Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, in 2015. Master degree sucessfuly achieved two years later, in Biochemistry for Health by Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2017). Master thesis was developed at Instituto de Tecnologia Química Biológica (ITQB), aimed to unravel Staphylococcus aureus’ energetic metabolism by exploring respiratory enzymes, namely malate:quinone oxidoreductases, at molecular and cellular levels. At the moment, developing PhD project (started in February 2018) by Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, at Instituto de Medicina Molecular (IMM). PhD project is currently on going, entitled Molecular determinants of Plasmodium hepatic stage-driven severe malaria pathology, supervised by Dr Maria Manuel Mota (IMM) and co-supervised by Dr Bruno Silva-Santos (IMM) and Dr Carlos Penha-Gonçalves (IGC). Research project is mainly focused in the host immune response mounted against the malaria parasite infection, specifically dissecting the critical contribution of the liver-stage Plasmodium infection to the host inflammatory response, and ultimately, for the establishment of severe pathology, namely experimental cerebral malaria. The main goal is to identify cell-specific molecular determinants and/or molecular pathway(s) underlying the critical impact of the hepatic stage of malarial infection in the outcome of the pathology. Throughout the time working in laboratory, experience has been achieved in several technical aspects of research, and most importantly, enriched and improved critical and conceptual thinking. The wide range of scientific subjects developed, has provided the chance to learn and apply many different techniques in diverse scientific fields, such as Cell Biology and Molecular Biology, including in vitro cell culture assays and infection, microscopy, DNA and RNA extraction; Biochemistry, comprising protein purification approaches, chromatographic processes, absorption spectroscopy, protein stability and enzymatic activity assays, based-NMR metabolomics; Microbiology and Immunology expertise, including in vivo analysis of immune populations, isolation and in vitro stimulation of immune cells, cell sorting and flow cytometry analysis, as well as ability to work in aseptic conditions and to handle nosocomial multi-drug resistant bacterial strains; Informatics and Computational skills.