Ana Maria Sequeira Cardoso concluded her PhD in Biosciences, specialization in Biochemistry, in 2014 from the University of Coimbra (Faculty of Sciences and Technology), her MSc in Biochemistry in 2009 from the University of Coimbra (Faculty of Sciences and Technology) and her BSc in Biochemistry in 2007 from the University of Coimbra (Faculty of Sciences and Technology). She is a researcher in CIBB (former CNC.IBILI), with 38 articles published in specialized journals, and four book chapters, summing 914 citations, which rendered her an h-index of 20 (Scopus). In 2010, Ana Cardoso received a PhD individual grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) to develop nucleic acid delivery systems, based on lipids, gemini surfactants, cell-penetrating peptides and thermoresponsive polymers, for gene therapy, to be conducted at Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra (CNC). She studied the biophysical properties of nucleic acid delivery systems and established correlations between their biological activity, their structural characteristics and their interaction with biological or model membranes. She also addressed gene therapy directed towards mitochondria. In 2015, after her PhD, which she concluded in 2014 with honors, Ana Cardoso received an individual post-doctoral grant from FCT to study the molecular mechanisms underlying glioblastoma malignancy and to develop RNA-based strategies for glioblastoma therapy. From 2015 to 2019, still at CNC, she studied the role of non-protein coding RNAs in the regulation of energy metabolism in glioblastoma cells and evaluated the impact of gene therapy approaches targeting the expression of long non-coding RNAs and microRNAs involved in the metabolic phenotype of cancer cells, which is intimately connected with stem-like features displayed by tumors, glioblastoma cell invasion ability, and sensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs. She also developed tridimensional in vitro models of glioblastoma cells (spheroids and organoids), that closely resemble the responses of glioblastoma tumors in their physiological environment, to test RNA-mediated therapeutic approaches. In 2019, Ana Cardoso was hired by CNC under the DL 57/2016 norm and engaged in projects featuring the use of iPSCs and human cerebral organoids to study brain diseases with genetic etiology, such as frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). She characterized iPSCs reprogrammed from terminally differentiated somatic cells obtained from patients carrying mutations associated with the disease diagnostic, and produced human brain organoids following different protocols. These organoids are being used as platforms for the study of molecular, cellular and network features of neurodevelopment (ASD) and neurodegeneration (FTD). In parallel projects, Ana Cardoso studied miRNAs involved in the immune response in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients, including by performing peripheral blood mononuclear cell isolation, identification, determination of immune activity, chemotaxis and phagocytosis, and correlation with differential expression of immune-related microRNAs. She also helped establish a murine asthma model that was used to assess the epidemiological correlation between attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with immune dysfunction in early childhood. She is Co-PI of an ERA-NET NEURON project (NEURON/0002/2021; €234.375,00) to address the role of astrocyte dysfunctions in Phelan-McDermid syndrome.