Sofia Santos Costa

Sofia Santos Costa is currently a Researcher at the Unit of Medical Microbiology of IHMT-NOVA and member of the “THOP – TB, HIV and opportunistic diseases and pathogens” group of the Global Health and Tropical Medicine (GHTM) R&D center. She obtained her PhD in Biomedical Sciences, specialization Microbiology in 2013. She holds a MSc degree in Medical Microbiology (2008) and a Graduation in Applied Chemistry, specialization Biotechnology.

She is currently the Co-PI of the R&D Project BIOSAFE – Preventing antimicrobial resistance in the community – the safe use of biocides, funded by FEDER/FCT and member of the ENOVAT COST Action (European Network for Optimization of Veterinary Antimicrobial Treatment).

To date, she has authored/co-authored 30 international peer-reviewed publications, with over 800 citations and a scopus h-index of 17.

Sofia Santos Costa research interests focus on several aspects of antimicrobial resistance in a One Health context, namely:

– epidemiology and mechanisms of antibiotic and biocide resistance in staphylococci and other bacteria in humans and animals

– contribution of efflux systems and biofilms to antibiotic and biocide resistance

– evaluation of compounds as efflux inhibitors, antimicrobials and/or antibiofilm agents

– Galleria mellonella infection model to study virulence potential and drug efficacy

Works in close collaboration with Isabel Couto, together with the PhD students Catarina Morais, Carolina Ferreira, Marcelino Garrine, Mariana Andrade, Marta Leal and the MSc students Joana Neves, Carolina Antunes and Paula Zacharias.

1. Costa SS, Ribeiro R, Serrano M, Oliveira K, Ferreira C, Leal M, Pomba C, Couto I. Staphylococcus aureus causing skin and soft tissue infections in companion animals: antimicrobial resistance profiles and clonal lineages. Antibiotics 2022, 11, 599. doi.org/ 10.3390/antibiotics11050599
2. Costa SS*, Oliveira V, Serrano M, Pomba C, Couto I*. Phenotypic and molecular traits of Staphylococcus coagulans associated with canine skin infections in Portugal. Antibiotics 2021, 10, 518. doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10050518
3. Costa SS, Ferreira C, Ribeiro R, Feßler AT, Schink A-K, Kadlec K, Kaspar H, Amaro A, Albuquerque T, Abrantes P, Morais C, Pomba C, Schwarz S, Couto Proposal of epidemiological cut-off values for apramycin 15 µg and florfenicol 30 µg disks applicable to Staphylococcus aureus. Microbial Drug Resistance 2021; 27: 1555-1559. doi: 10.1089/mdr.2020.0402
4. Costa SS, Sobkowiak B, Parreira R, Edgeworth JD, Viveiros M, Clark TG, Couto I. Genetic diversity of norA, coding for a main efflux pump of Staphylococcus aureus. Frontiers in Genetics 2019; 9: 710. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00710
5. Costa SS, Viveiros M, Pomba C, Couto I. Active antimicrobial efflux in Staphylococcus epidermidis: building up of resistance in a major opportunistic pathogen. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2018; 73: 320-324. doi: 10.1093/jac/dkx400