Cruz dos Santos Sebastião

Cruz Sebastião is an Angolan researcher at National Center for Scientific Research (CNIC), located in Luanda, the capital city of Angola, where he has been since 2025.

He received his Ph.D. in Biomedicine from NOVA Medical School in 2021, in Portugal. He participated as a postdoctoral fellow in the ENVOLVE Ciência PALOP program, funded by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), in Portugal, where he was part of the HIV/AIDS and Bioinformatics laboratory of the IHMT-NOVA in 2021, in Lisbon, Portugal.

He has experience in HIV sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. He is able to prepare results for publication and write his own manuscripts. He is also familiar with data analysis and statistics. He has more than 50 scientific publications in the fields of HIV/Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Arboviruses/Vector-borne Diseases and SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, which have been published in international, peer-reviewed, impact-relevant scientific journals, such as, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Scientific Reports, Journal of Medical Virology, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, AIDS and Behavior and AIDS Reviews.

His current research project explores viral and host factors related to HIV-1 infection and molecular epidemiology of emerging infectious diseases (EID) in Angola. Also, he is working on optimizing and reducing the cost of HIV-1 drug resistance surveillance in Angola based on Next Generation Sequencing (Oxford Nanopore Technologies).

Epidemiology and Public Health

Cruz Sebastião conducts research on viral and host factors related to HIV-1 infection, as well as the molecular epidemiology of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in Angola. His work aims to understand the genetic patterns of these diseases, their transmission, and evolution, with the goal of strengthening public health responses. He is actively involved in the genomic surveillance of emerging infectious agents, contributing to the early detection of outbreaks and the development of more effective control strategies in the country.

Clinical Research

In the clinical field, Cruz Sebastião focuses on the surveillance of HIV-1 drug resistance. He is working on optimizing and reducing the cost of these tests through next-generation sequencing technologies, with particular emphasis on Oxford Nanopore Technologies platforms. This approach enables faster, more accessible analyses tailored to the Angolan context. His goal is to make HIV-1 drug resistance monitoring more efficient, sustainable, and accessible to the local healthcare system. This research is essential for tracking the effectiveness of current treatments and guiding more effective therapeutic policies.

1. Sebastião CS, Abecasis AB, Jandondo D, Sebastião JMK, Vigário J, Comandante F, Pingarilho M, Pocongo B, Cassinela E, Gonçalves F, Gomes P, Giovanetti M, Francisco NM, Sacomboio E, Brito M, Neto de Vasconcelos J, Morais J, Pimentel V. HIV-1 diversity and pre-treatment drug resistance in the era of integrase inhibitor among newly diagnosed ART-naïve adult patients in Luanda, Angola. Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 10;14(1):15893. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66905-1.
2. Sebastião CS, Machado MG, Vigário J, Comandante F, Armando A, Silva MLS, Sebastião JMK, Manico E, Machado D, Pimentel V. Trends in active hepatitis B virus infection and associated risk factors among blood donor candidates from Luanda, Angola. Sci Rep. 2025 May 12;15(1):16478. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-01089-w.
3. Sebastião CS, Pimentel V, Jandondo D, Sebastião JMK, Sacomboio E, Pingarilho M, Brito M, Cassinela EK, de Vasconcelos JN, Abecasis AB, Morais J. Distribution of CCR5-Delta32, CCR2-64I, and SDF1-3’A host genetic factors in HIV-infected and uninfected individuals in Luanda, Angola. AIDS Res Ther. 2025; doi: 10.1186/s12981-025-00751-7.
4. Sebastião CS, Jandondo D, Vigário J, António F, Sebastião JMK, Silva MLS, Pimentel V, Abecasis A, Sacomboio E, Vasconcelos JN, Morais J. Seroprevalence and Risk Factors of STIs among Rejected Blood Donors at the National Blood Transfusion Service in Angola. AIDS Behav. 2025 Apr 5. doi: 10.1007/s10461-025-04700-3.
5. Sebastião CS, Pingarilho M, Bathy J, Bonfim E, Toancha K, Miranda MNS, Martins MRO, Gomes P, Lázaro L, Pina-Araujo I, Nhampossa T, Leal S, Abecasis AB, Pimentel V. MARVEL-minimising the emergence and dissemination of HIV-1 drug resistance in Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP): low-cost portable NGS platform for HIV-1 surveillance in Africa. BMC Infect Dis. 2024 Aug 29;24(1):884. doi: 10.1186/s12879-024-09803-1