BERNARDES, GONÇALO J. L.

Dr Gonçalo Bernardes é Investigador Principal no Departamento de Química da Universidade de Cambridge, Reino Unido, onde é Royal Society University Research Fellow e Professor associado (reader). Ele também é diretor da Unidade de Chemical Biology and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology no Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal. Após completar o seu D.Phil. em 2008, na Universidade de Oxford, Reino Unido, ele realizou trabalho de pós-doutorado no Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, na Alemanha, e no ETH Zürich, na Suíça, e trabalhou como Líder do Grupo na empresa de biotecnologia Alfama Lda, Portugal. Os seus interesses de investigação centram-se no desenvolvimento de reações quimio-selectivas para a modificação de biomoléculas e seu uso para entender e influenciar doenças humanas. Em 2013 ele foi premiado com o prêmio EFMC para jovem Químico Medicinal na Academia e foi distinguido pelo Ministério Português da Saúde de Portugal por serviços relevantes para a Saúde Pública e Medicina.

Gonçalo grew up in the small coastal town of Torres Vedras, Portugal. He graduated in chemistry from the University of Lisbon in 2004 and moved to the University of Oxford, UK where he completed his D.Phil. in 2008 under the supervision of Prof. Ben Davis. At Oxford, he worked on reaction engineering for site-selective protein modification. Then, he was awarded a Marie-Curie Fellowship for his postdoctoral studies with Prof. Peter H. Seeberger. After a short period in Portugal working as a Group Leader at Alfama Lda. (a spin-out company dedicated to the development of Carbon Monoxide-Releasing Molecules), Gonçalo moved to the ETH, Zürich to join the group of Prof. Dario Neri. At ETH, and as an EMBO Fellow, he developed new vascular targeting antibody-drug conjugates for cancer therapy.Gonçalo was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2013 and started his independent group at Cambridge. He was appointed as a University Lecturer in June 2018 and promoted to Reader in June 2019.Gonçalo founded and is Director of the pioneering Chemical Biology and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Unit at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon. Gonçalo splits his time between his labs in Cambridge and Lisbon, and leads a research program at the interface of chemistry and biology with a focus on the development of new chemoselective reactions for the modification of biomolecules and their use to understand and influence human disease. Gonçalo is also a Fellow at Trinity Hall.