Bárbara Malheiros

PhD Candidate

Nationality: Brazilian
Undergraduate Institution: Universidade de São Paolo, BR
Email: b.malheiros@tue.nl
Phone: +31 40 247 5414
Office: STO 2.42

Sub-group(s):

Biography:

In December 2016 I completed my bachelor in Physics in the University of São Paulo, Brazil. During the bachelor period, I also had the great opportunity to spend an exchange year (09/2015-07/2016) in the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. There I learned more about applied sciences which lead me to a very interdisciplinary master project. Between 2017-2018, I investigated a nanoparticle intended for drug delivery purposes called “cubosome”. I performed the biophysical characterization of this nanoparticle and studied the interaction with a drug used in both leishmaniosis and cancer treatments (miltefosine). During the master I was able to learn a few techniques such as SAXS, light scattering and cryo-EM. Learning in detail about electron microscopy opened my eyes for all microscopy techniques and their importance, relevance and beauty. As of October 2020 I am appointed as a PhD candidate in the group of Prof. Dr. Ilja Voets at the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems and part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN) SuperCol.

Research interest:

In this PhD project I will work with particle based biosensors. Such particles will be functionalized with DNA via different chemical routes and I will study their surface distribution and quantification. Techniques such as flow cytometry and super resolution microscopy will help the characterization of the particle functionalization and confocal microscopy will be used to study particle assembly. Within the ITN we will study the interaction of these particles with cells to investigate biosensing applications.