Patrícia Coelho holds a B.Sc. in Applied Biology from the University of Minho. She is currently in the second year of her master’s degree in Biomedicine at the same University, developing her dissertation work entitled “Neurosteroid and lipid signaling in Machado-Joseph disease: toward novel therapies” at the Institute for Life and Health Sciences (ICVS) at the University of Minho, integrating the Translational Neurogenetics team coordinated by Prof. Patrícia Maciel. Currently, she is interested in understanding how lipid pathways are dysregulated in the context of Machado-Joseph disease using a mouse model, and how these alterations may represent therapeutic targets. Her main objectives are to evaluate the lipid signatures in the brain of MJD mice, to understand the role of bile acids in the modulation of lipid networks, to establish correlations between these lipid signatures and motor performance, and to genetically and pharmacologically modulate enzymes that control the top candidate lipid(s) to assess their effects on disease progression.