Bárbara Malheiros (ESR 09)

ESR 09 : Bárbara Malheiros

I am a physicist and at my bachelor I had the great opportunity to spend an exchange year in the Netherlands, in the University of Groningen. During this exchange I was able to expand my knowledge and get in touch with the applied sciences world. In my master, I worked with biophysics applied to pharmaceutical sciences, studying a colloidal suspension of nanoparticle for drug delivery applications. When performing the biophysical characterization of this nanoparticles called cubosomes, I used techniques such as: X-rays scattering, electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. In particular, I got the opportunity to learn in detail about TEM and cryo-EM during my master.

This interest for microscopy techniques brought me to the ITN network, where I will work with synthesis and characterization of particle based biosensors for medical applications, using super resolution techniques and different chemical surface DNA grafting of colloids.

Project topic: Synthesis of particles with responsive DNA ligands for super-selective biosensing

Synthesis and characterization of DNA coated colloids, via click chemistry, and particle assembly studies. This project aims to characterize surface density and distribution. Subsequently, a fine tune of the ligands will be performed envisaging the future application in cell biosensing.