João Pedro Saavedra is a research fellow at Prof. Cecília Roque’s lab (UCIBIO, NOVA FCT, Caparica, Portugal). He is currently working in the European-funded project PROSPLIGN, which aims to harness the biotechnological potential of lignin, namely for applications in the fragrances sector. João Saavedra completed his bachelor (2021) and master (2023) in Biological Engineering, both at Instituto Superior Técnico, IST (Lisbon, Portugal). During his master thesis, he successfully developed chromatography-based scalable purification methods of bacteriophages, aiming at a wider application of phage therapy. This work culminated in the publication of a paper (March 2025), as a first-author, in a Q1 peer-review international journal, as well as a poster and a flash presentation in a scientific conference. João Saavedra also worked as a teaching assistant (IST) in lab classes for graduate students of Biological Engineering (2023-2024), supervised a 12th-grade science project in the area of bacteriophages (2023-2024, presented at Mostra Nacional de Ciência 2024), and acted as the students’ representative during his master (September 2021-July 2023). His main scientific interests lie in the field of Industrial Biotechnology, namely in the production and purification of bioproducts (both recombinant proteins and bacteriophages), always under the premise that there can be no progress in society without advancing scientific knowledge.