Mafalda Galhardo
Post-Doc Researcher
While studying Biochemistry (BSc), I have realized that biological processes and mechanisms underlying organism functioning are highly complex and interconnected, with a large capacity for adaptation based upon the multitude of interactions among many players, which allow them to diversely respond to internal and external stimuli. This fascinating but also challenging complexity made me think that we need to apply comprehensive and integrative methodologies in order to advance our understanding of biological systems. Therefore, I pursued my master studies in Systems Biology (MSc), an emergent field that has been increasing based on the "omics” technologies and which attempts to study a biological problem in an integrated way, optimally as a system, considering multiple components and their interactions, in order to better describe complex phenomena which are often not well described by the analysis of isolated parts, components or processes. During my PhD I performed an integrated analysis of human adipocyte differentiation, focusing on transcript-level regulation by 3 transcription factors key to adipogenesis and 3 down-regulated microRNAs and the metabolic changes elicited during differentiation. I also looked into the relationship between the regulatory load of a gene and its likelihood of being related to a disease.
My interests include bioinformatics, data analysis and integration, on topics such as genomic and epigenomic regulation and their interplay with metabolism and diseases.