(Chemical) Bonding is what makes life possible

Claudia Nunes (CN) completed her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences – Medicinal and Therapeutic Chemistry (FFUP) in December 2011, followed by a five-year Post-Doc at LAQV-REQUIMTE. CN was awarded with PhD FCT and post-Doc FCT fellowships.
In 2016, she won her first position as a researcher in the FCT Investigator program. In 2022 she was awarded a position as an assistant researcher in the Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus (CEEC).

CN is specialized in the study of drug-membrane interactions using cell-membrane mimetic models of different dimensionalities coupled with biophysical techniques, to unveil related mechanisms of action. Over time, such knowledge has also boosted her interest on the development of colloidal drug delivery nanosystems able to overcome the side-effects of commercial drugs. In this context, most of CN work has and continues to be focused on colloidal chemistry and interface phenomena, linked to nanomedicine. CN carries out educational activities through invited lectures at graduation and post-graduation courses, besides being an invited assistant professor of the curricular unit co-coordinadted by her: “Nanotherapeutics and Nanodiagnostics”, at ICBAS and a promotor of summer courses on membrane biophysics. These teaching activities directly derive from CN expertise in the research field.

Overall, CN is the co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications in international journals and 7 book chapters. Her h-index is of 31 (scopus) and has over 2900 citations. 25% of the publications are as corresponding author, 7% as last author and 7% as first author. 64 % of the publications are in Q1 journals. In every step of CN career, she was always involved in the supervision of many students – undergraduate and graduated. In total, she supervised 1 Post-Doc, 4 PhD and 15 MSc students, and co-supervised 3 PhD and 8 MSc students.