Mariana Branco holds a MSc in Biological Engineering from IST, a PhD in Bioengineering from IST, and is currently working as an assistant researcher in the collaborative laboratory Accelbio. Mariana has now 7 years of experience in working with human pluripotent stem cells in the cardiac field. She has been dedicated to bring together bioengineering and developmental biology concepts to achieve innovative and cutting-edge in vivo inspired platforms that recreate heart organogenesis in vitro. Currently she is focused on translating cardiac organoid models for developmental cardiotoxicity applications and for modelling neurodevelopmental disorders that present identified heart function defects.