Ana Franco obtained her degree in Chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL). She received her Master’s degree at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in 2017 for work on the structure elucidation of ribose-borate esters in silicophosphate prebiological environments. Currently, she is a PhD student at IST. Her current research interest focuses on the role of borate and transition metals in the synthesis of RNA precursors in aqueous environments, under prebiotic conditions.