Francisca Massano obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) in 2022, followed by a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering with specialization in Biotechnology, also from FEUP, in 2023. These degrees equipped her with a comprehensive theoretical and practical education spanning areas such as Physics, Engineering, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Biotechnology, and also Molecular Biology. During the first year of her Master’s degree, she had the opportunity to study at the Autonomous University of Madrid under the ERASMUS+ program. In the second year, she started working at the Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy (LEPABE) – FEUP. Her research focus centered on developing novel therapies to combat bacterial and biofilm-associated infections that later culminated in the development of her master’s thesis titled “Natural products as resistance-modifying agents to recycle old antibiotics”. Her work included innovative approaches, notably due to the evaluation of dual (phytochemical + antibiotic and natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) + antibiotic) combinations. Throughout this period, she earned research experience in several experimental methodologies, such as microbiology techniques, antibiotic susceptibility tests, antimicrobial resistance studies, search for new antibiotic adjuvants, study of antimicrobial activity of phytochemicals, study of the phytochemical mode of action, biofilm control assays, microplate staining methods, colony forming units determination and production of NADES. She successfully defended her dissertation with a final grade of 18/20. This research experience also honed her skills in scientific writing, resulting in one first-author article and two oral presentations at the IJUP Conference, one presented in 2023 and the other in 2024. Additionally, her work at LEPABE-FEUP also led to involvement in other projects resulting in two scientific articles as co-author. From September to December 2023, she worked as a Research Fellow at the Biofilm Engineering Lab (BEL) - LEPABE under the project BIOMAT - Development and characterization of surfaces with antibiofilm activity for biomedical applications. This position provided her with theoretical and experimental experience in bacterial culture, biofilm assays, production of surfaces impregnated with functionalized carbon structures and handling bacteria under BLS-2 conditions. As part of this project she participated in the SurfSAFE Conference, in 2023. She also worked as a Research Fellow at CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials in 2024, contributing to the project "Development of cost-effective platforms based on ionic liquids for the purification of p53-minicircle DNA biopharmaceuticals with application in oncology." Currently, she is a PhD student in Chemical and Biological Engineering at FEUP, conducting research at LEPABE. Her work focuses on developing innovative disinfectants for hospital environments using phytochemical products. Specifically, she evaluates the efficacy of structurally diverse phytochemicals and bio-inspired synthetic derivatives, both individually and in combination with conventional biocides, against multidrug-resistant bacteria and biofilms. Her research integrates microbiological and biochemical approaches to combat antimicrobial resistance and improve sustainable hospital disinfection strategies.