JerónimoCarmen Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO Porto)Portugal

Carmen Jerónimo is the Director of the Research Center and Group Leader of the Cancer Biology & Epigenetics Group at the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO Porto), as well as Full Professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Genetics and the Director of the Master Course in Oncology at the University of Porto, teaching Pathology and Cancer Epigenetics, both undergraduate and Post-graduation Courses. She obtained her BSc in Biology (1994), MSc in Oncology (1998), PhD in Biomedical Sciences (2001), and Habilitation in Pathology and Molecular Genetics (2011) at the University of Porto. She performed her PhD project at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), USA, supervised by Prof. David Sidransky under the GABBA Program, working on prostate cancer genetic and epigenetic alterations. From 2002 until 2007, she was a Post-doctoral Fellow and Invited Researcher at IPO Porto, collaborating with JHU, working on detecting neoplastic cells by DNA-based technology in clinical samples obtained from non-invasive or minimally invasive methods. In 2008, she established her independent group at IPO Porto, working on Cancer Biology and Epigenetics (FCT-2008 Science Program). She has supervised/co-supervised 7 Post-Doctoral fellows, 14 PhD students, 83 master's students, and several undergraduates. Presently she mentors 2 Junior Researchers (R2), 15 PhD students (7 as co-supervisor), and 6 Master students. As an independent Researcher, she served as PI/co-PI of more than 20 grants. She participated in 14 other projects granted from different National and International agencies under competitive concurrence (> 6M euros). She has authored/ co-authored more than 300 international scientific publications including 13 book chapters and 84 review articles (H-index 55; WoS 12/2023), including in first quartile (Q1) journals; Clin Cancer Res, Cancers, Cancer Letters, Cell Death Dis, Clinical Epig, Br J Cancer, Eur J Cancer, J Cell Mol Med, J Hematol Oncol, JNCI, Mol Cancer, Mol Oncol and Nat Commun, Oncogene, PNAS]. In 2012 she collaborated on a patent submission (Methods and biomarkers for detection of bladder cancer US 20130210011/ EP 2630261 A1/ WO 2012052844 A1). Her research interests are focused on characterizing the epigenome of tumor cells and identifying functional changes involved in cell epigenetic homeostasis breakdown. In the context of Personalized Medicine, she works on developing new cancer epigenetic biomarkers based on liquid biopsies and drug discovery based on the modulation of epigenetic aberrations. Owing to the relevance that Immuno-oncology has demonstrated in recent years, she is also investigating the epigenetic expression modulation of biomolecules involved in immune checkpoint regulation, aiming to improve immunotherapeutic strategies combined with epi-drugs. More recently, she started tackling the contribution of deregulated non-coding RNAs and their interaction with other epigenetic mechanisms in malignant transformation. Currently, she serves as Section Editor of Clinical Epigenetics and Associate Editor of Frontiers in Genetics and Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology. She is also an MC member of COST Action European Epitranscriptomics Network- CA16120-EPITRAN, Chair of the Board- Section of Urological Research (ESUR) of the European Association of Urology (EAU) and President of the Portuguese Association for Cancer Research-ASPIC. She usually acts as a grant reviewer for multiple national (FCT Investigator Call 2013 e 2015) and international agencies including Cancer Research UK; Binational Science Foundation Israel; Swiss National Science Foundation, WILLIAMS BARKER, MRC, UK; Swiss League Against Cancer-KFS; FWF Austrian Science Fund; PROSTATE CANCER UK; Agence Nationale de la Recherche, FR; Fundaciò La Marató, SP; Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg; Institut National Du Cancer, France; Novo Nordik Foden, Norway.LINKS: http://www.ipoporto.pt/en/ensino-investigacao/grupo-de-epigenetica-biologia-do-cancro/ http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4186-5345