Claudina Rodrigues-Pousada (Biology)
Claudina Rodrigues-Pousada |
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Claudina Rodrigues-Pousada is a molecular biologist, and Head of the Laboratory of Genomics and Stress and Full Professor at the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica (ITQB) in Oeiras, Portugal. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique, Paris, France, under the supervision of Prof. Donal Hayes. Claudina has been working in the field of signal transduction and gene regulation under stress conditions for more than 25 years.
When she returned to Portugal in 1979, she launched her own laboratory at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science, pioneering the introduction of molecular biology approaches in Portugal. She started studying microtubule biogenesis using the ciliate Tetrahymena as a model. Later, she introduced the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, having been the only Portuguese laboratory to participate in the European taskforce to sequence its entire genome.
In 1996, she initiated a collaboration with the laboratory of Prof. António Xavier on the genetics and molecular biology of the sulphate-reducing bacterium, Desulfovibrio gigas. Together the two laboratories made important contributions to the mechanisms involved in the metabolism of this bacterium.
In 2000, she moved to ITQB where she continued to develop her work on stress response, looking at the function of the family of transcription factors YAP (AP-1 like factors). The second member of this family, YAP2, was discovered in her laboratory. She is currently pursuing investigations on D. gigas and is deciphering its genome.
Claudina Rodrigues-Pousada's work has been published in over 100 papers in leading journals and she has written numerous books chapters. She has been an invited speaker at international scientific meetings and has organised international congresses, in particular the Yeast Conference on Genetics and Molecular Biology in 1995, the 27th FEBS Congress in 2001 and the II International Congress on Stress Response in Biology and Medicine. Apart from these events, she has also organised several workshops, courses and seminars. She has played an important role in introducing molecular biology into the curricula of Portuguese universities.
During her career she has supervised close to 30 PhD and several masters' students. In 1994, Claudina was elected a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). From 1998 to 2004 she was President of the Portuguese Biochemical Society and served as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Federation of the European Biochemical Societies (FEBS). In 2005, she was elected chair of the FEBS Working Group on Young Scientists' Careers and she serves as President of the Scientific Committee of the Start-up Company "STAB-GENOMICA". She has served on various national and international scientific committees and regularly serves as a referee for several international journals and funding agencies.