Profile

Margarida D. Amaral is Full Professor of Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa (Portugal) and Group Leader at the BioISI – Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute (FCUL, Portugal). MDA is alumna of EMBL-European Molecular Biology Laboratory (2008-10; 2016) and of IGC – Gulbenkian Institute of Science (1983-1993). Member of EMBO – European Molecular Biology Organization and of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences and received multiple awards, among which the Pfizer-SCML Award for Basic Biomedical Research and the Annual Award of ECFS – European Cystic Fibrosis Society. She was a Visiting Researcher (2012-15) at UniCamp-University of Campinas (SP, Brazil) and since 2023 she has been teaching at the University of Shanghai (China).

Research: The Amaral lab has its major focus on the molecular mechanisms of the genetic disease Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and on translating this knowledge into the benefit of people with CF. To understand CF mechanisms globally we use transcriptomics, proteomics, and functional genomics, namely functional high-content siRNA screens. Recently, we are focussing on the CF pathways leading to cancer. Our results translate into the clinic for better CF diagnosis, prognosis, and personalized therapies. Author of >185 international peer-reviewed publications, and 4 patents, with >7,000 Scopus citations, Highly Cited Researcher (2%) since 2020 (Mendeley, University of Stanford) and nr.2 in Portugal in Cell Biology (Research.com).