Ana Rita Guimarães completed her PhD in Biomedicine at the University of Aveiro in 2023, specializing in the evolution of the genetic code and codon reassignment using S. cerevisiae as a model organism. She has a strong foundation in Biology with a BSc and a MSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the same university. Her early research, during a BSc internship at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, focused on the cardiovascular effects of apelin in pulmonary hypertension models. For her MSc thesis, she joined the RNA Biology laboratory under Professor Manuel Santos, where she studied how codon ambiguities could lead to codon reassignment in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This research sparked her interest in genetic codes and led to her involvement in projects concerning antifungal resistance and mistranslation in Candida albicans prior to her PhD. Throughout her doctoral research, she became proficient in a variety of laboratory techniques, including both traditional and CRISPR cloning methods, experimental evolution, and mistranslation assessment using advanced reporters. Her work also extended into bioinformatics, where she gained substantial experience analyzing whole-genome sequencing and transcriptomic data. She has shared her work at several conferences, both as oral and poster presentations and contributed to six publications. She also worked as a superior technician at the Bioinformatics laboratory of iBiMED, managing computational resources (HPC and pipelines) and supporting users. She also participated in several science outreach activities, including the Junior/Summer Academy, Xperimenta UA, and educational sessions for secondary school students.