Margarida Marques

Margarida Marques is a PhD student in Tropical Diseases and Global Health at the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical (IHMT-NOVA), a position she has held since 2024. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and a master’s degree in Medical Microbiology. In 2024, she also gained industry experience working as a microbiology analyst for a pharmaceutical company.

Her doctoral research is being conducted under the scope of an FCT doctoral grant (ref. 2024.01056.BD).

The work being developed is part of a PhD thesis in Tropical Diseases and Global Health, entitled “The role of Pseudomonas-Serratia interactions in crafting biofilms barriers against Plasmodium infection in Anopheles mosquitoes”. This project is in collaboration with the iBB (Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences) at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). The main objectives are to study the interactions between Pseudomonas and Serratia species in polymicrobial biofilms. In addition, the aim is to increase the ability of these bacteria to produce biofilms and test their effect on in vivo infection by Plasmodium in Anopheles species, in order to make mosquitoes more refractory to malaria infection.