FARDILHA'S
LAB

About

Vanessa Neto holds a BSc degree in Biomedical Sciences (16/20) (2019) and a MSc degree in Molecular Biomedicine (19/20) (2021), both from the University of Aveiro (Portugal). Currently, she is a PhD student enrolled in the Doctoral Programme in Biomedicine by the University of Aveiro and NOVA Medical School and she is developing her PhD research workplan at the Institute of Biomedicine (iBiMED, University of Aveiro). Vanessa's PhD project, entitled " Spectroscopic Profiling of a NTyP Cohort to Improve Nodular Thyroid Diagnosis", aims to develop an accurate, early, and differential method of diagnosis, to discriminate benign from malignant thyroid samples and to classify the different types of thyroid cancer, using cytological samples, obtained directly by Fine-Needle-Aspiration biopsies (usual procedure of diagnosis), and plasma, based in spectroscopic biomarkers. This project is supervised by Prof. Alexandra Nunes (University of Aveiro), Prof. Maria Teresa Herdeiro (University of Aveiro) and Margarida Fardilha (University of Aveiro). Vanessa's research interests comprise cancer, metabolomics, spectroscopy, and univariate and multivariate data analysis. In 2022, she worked as a research fellow within the FCT-financed project "Development and validation of e-Health tools to support clinical decision and patient empowerment in respiratory infections: randomized controlled cluster trial" (PTDC/SAU-SER/31678/2017). So far, Vanessa has published three articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (two of them as first author), one online resource, and has one poster and one published conference abstract. Moreover, she is also co-author of a review about metabolomics and human aging already accepted for publication. In parallel to her research activity, Vanessa is involved in pedagogical activities, being an Assistant in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) classes in a curricular unit of the Biomedical Sciences degree (University of Aveiro). Besides, she has participated in several workshops and scientific conferences and has been actively collaborating in the organization of a scientific event and in science dissemination activities to non-scientific audiences (e.g. scientific monitor in summer academies).