BEYOND THE LAB COAT: Ana Freire

Ana Freire, as she is known here at INEB, is a very dear PhD student from the lovely stem cell biology team headed by Perpétua Pinto-do-Ó. Ana was born in Lisbon in the 9th of April of 1985, although all of her life was spend in our wonderful city of Porto. Ana started her BSc degree in Biology in 2003 at the Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto.

Looking forward to learn more and more, she has joined IBMC as a research trainee investigating mechanisms of tolerance and accumulation of zinc in a particular plant species towards phytoremediation application, in the last year before completing her degree.

Although she has started in a very different field of research – Plants, Ana was not afraid of challenge herself and join INEB in 2008 for a completely different line of research. Ana started her work on stem cells in cardiac repair/regeneration, and passionated by that, she has enrolled the Biomedical Engineering PhD program at Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto and INEB, where she has been developing part of her work. Ana is very committed with her work but also to everyone that works with her. During the past years she was also involved in other activities, namely on the organization of our Science Club in 2010.

 

Ana is also a very brave person, in the scope of her PhD work, she has moved to New York during 2 years in 2011, where she developed part of her work at the Black Family Stem Cell Institute/Mount Sinai School of Medicine (NY).

 

Main Challenge
In general, my main scientific interest is to understand the molecular mechanisms that control stem cells in their microenvironments in homeostatic and pathological conditions.

INEB in one word
Family. INEBians are like a family that love to get together to work and to party

Beyond the lab coat... Spend time with the family and friends, enjoy good food and drinks, travel, watch a good movie, enjoy the sun, paint...

The Movie
The English Patient (by Anthony Minghella), The Life is beautiful (by Roberto Benigni), The Pianist (by Roman Polanski)

The Book
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), The Man from St. Petersburg (Ken Follett)

The Trip
My favourite trip so far was to Tuscany, Italy. I wish one day to take my backpack and discover India, Southeast Asia, Australia and South America.

 

 

If I wasn’t a scientist, I would be...
A psychologist, an interior designer or a painter.