About Tânia
Tânia Morais is an assistant researcher at Centro de Química Estrutural of Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (CQE-FCUL). She obtained her degree in Chemistry (2007) by Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL), where she also completed a master's degree in Chemistry with specialization in Chemistry, Health and Nutrition (2008). Tânia Morais got her PhD in Chemistry with specialization in Inorganic Chemistry (2013) by University of Lisbon developing ruthenium organometallic compounds for cancer therapy. In 2013 she start a postdoc at Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa and Centro de Química Estrutural, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, where she develops peptide-metal conjugates for targeted therapy. In 2014 she was honored by the Portuguese Chemical Society with the prize “Portuguese Young Chemist Award”. In 2015, Tânia was a visitor postdoc researcher at Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), Barcelona, Spain under a Marie Sklodowska-Curie project, that allow her to acquire important know-how in peptide synthesis. In 2019, Tânia won a contract in the frame of CEEC Individual 2017 program and started an independent research at CQE-FCUL where she develops metal-peptide conjugates for targeted therapy, merging her know-how in organometallic chemistry with her expertise in peptide chemistry.
Tânia research focuses in the design, synthesis and characterization of Ru, Fe and Cu complexes with targeting molecules (e.g. peptides, carbohydrates, biomolecules) in their structure for the selective inhibition of the cancer development and metastases. Tânia Morais is co-founder of a FCUL proto- company named “HATIcancer”. Tânia has experience as a scientific adviser (PhD Supervision: 2 (since 2018, ongoing); Master Supervision: 9 (since 2015); Graduation Thesis Supervision: 14; Erasmus - graduation students: 3). She has authored 37 articles published in international journals with peer review, 6 book chapters, several conference proceedings and 5 inter-/national patents with over 800 citations and has a H-index of 19. In her professional activities interacted with 86 collaborator(s) in coauthoring of scientific works.