A native of Madeira island, I am currently a full professor at the Department of Bioengineering of Instituto Superior Técnico, the largest school of Engineering in Portugal´s capital, Lisbon. I regularly teach a range of subjects (Mass and Heat Transfer, Fluid Dynamics, Separation Processes, Downstream Processing, Biological Engineering Labs, Nucleic Acid Structure, Innovation in Bioengineering, Biomimicry) to Biological Engineering, Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering students. My research activities are carried out within iBB-Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences and currently cover the following topics: 1. Molecular design of DNA therapeutics, 2. Bio-recognition and bio-interfacing and 3. Microbial cell factories. I am the author of around 200 papers, 23 book chapters, 2 books an 1 US patent.