Xavier Jorge is currently a research technician in the Chromosomal Segregation in Disease laboratory led by Dr. Sara Carvalhal at the Algarve Biomedical Center – Research Institute (ABC-Ri). He holds a BSc in Biochemistry (180 ECTS, final grade: 14/20) and an MSc in Oncobiology— Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer (120 ECTS, final grade: 17/20), both from the University of Algarve. During his undergraduate studies, Xavier completed a final-year research project titled Spectroscopic Studies on the Solubility of Trehalose and Cellobiose in Aqueous Media (project grade: 17/20), where he identified an alternative aggregation structure in trehalose. Following his graduation in 2020, he joined the Algarve Biomedical Center's COVID-19 task force as a clinical analysis technician, performing serological testing and contributing to the national preschool screening program. In 2021, he began his MSc thesis in Dr. Carvalhal’s lab, focusing on the molecular mechanisms underlying erroneous chromosome segregation in Warsaw Breakage Syndrome (WABS), a rare cohesinopathy. His work highlighted the mislocalization of Topoisomerase II alpha as a potential contributor to WABS pathophysiology. He completed the thesis with a final grade of 19/20. Since completing his MSc, Xavier has remained in the lab as a technician, initially supported by a Maratona da Saúde grant (FCT-funded) and currently by the NeuRare grant (AD-ABC-funded). He has provided imaging and experimental support to multiple projects, including BBBrain (FCT-funded) and NeuRare, both of which investigate how mitotic defects impact brain development and disease. Xavier has developed strong expertise in advanced fluorescence microscopy, chromosome spreading, cell culture, and quantitative image analysis. He has presented his work at a total of seven institutional seminars and has delivered poster presentations at Ageing Without Borders, the Society for Stem Cells and Cell Therapies, and the 27th Annual Meeting of the Sociedade Portuguesa de Genética Humana, both as first author. The latter presentation was published as an abstract proceeding (http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/52885). He is also the first author of a short review article published in UALGoritmo institutional magazine and second author on a lab resource article in Stem Cell Research (DOI: 10.1016/j.scr.2024.103594). He also completed the European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases (EJP RD) training course on NGS diagnostics and was invited to co-teach a university-wide Hands-on Workshop in ImageJ, where he introduced macro scripting in FIJI/ImageJ for quantitative image analysis. Looking ahead, Xavier aims to deepen his research on brain diseases using advanced microscopy and to expand his scientific experience into in vivo models. His goal is to integrate molecular, imaging, and quantitative methods to better understand neurological disease mechanisms. He is applying for an FCT PhD Fellowship to pursue this research path under the joint supervision of Dr. Soraia Barão and Dr. Sara Carvalhal.