The Cyanobacterial Natural Products research team studies the fascinating secondary metabolism of an important group of photosynthetic microbes: Cyanobacteria. Using a highly multidisciplinary approach, ranging from NMR spectroscopy to genome sequencing, and a blend of discovery- and hypothesis-based science, lab members investigate the chemistry, biosynthesis and ecology of cyanobacterial secondary metabolites. The team is particularly focused on studying compounds that contain fatty-acid residues and on the unusual enzymes that modify them, and on the discovery of secondary metabolites using genome-informed strategies.
The novel compounds unearthed by the Cyanobacterial Natural Products team are evaluated in terms of biological activity, in particular their pharmacologically- and ecologically-relevant properties. These efforts are part of CIIMAR’s Blue Biotechnology effort to add value to the biological diversity found in our oceans.
Pedro Leão is Principal Investigator and ERA Chair Holder in Blue Biotechnology and Bioengineering at CIIMAR, where he leads the Research Line in Marine Biotechnology and is the head of the Research Group “Cyanobacterial Natural Products”. He graduated in Biochemistry from the University of Porto in 2005 and went on to receive his MSc (2006) and PhD (2010) degrees from the same university. He undertook postdoctoral studies at CIIMAR, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Harvard University. He became an “FCT Investigator” in 2015 and started his group at CIIMAR in 2018 after receiving an ERC Starting Grant. His research focuses on the chemistry, biosynthesis and chemical ecology of cyanobacterial natural products.
Adriana Rego graduated in Biology at the University of Porto in 2015 and received his MSc in Molecular Biology (2017) from the same university. Since 2019 she is a FCT PhD student enrolled in the Biomedical Sciences doctoral programme. In her project she combines bioinformatics and microbial ecology to study the distribution and diversity of bacterial biosynthetic genes across multiple ecosystems.
Amaranta Kahn studies cyanobacterial fatty acid incorporation and its implication on aquatic ecology in cyanobacteria. She obtained her PhD degree (2019) in molecular biology and biochemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Ed Bayer) and in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Yannick Bomble). Her current research interests include molecular microbiology, biochemistry, metabolomic and lipidomic analysis. Amaranta is an extreme sport lover and, in her leisure time, she enjoys camping and dancing with friends.
Ana Vieira graduated in Biosciences from the Superior School of Biotechnology in 2009 and concluded her MSc in Microbiology (2011) from the same University. She was a research fellow in Microbiology at IBMC from 2011-2013. She was awarded a PhD degree in Medical Microbiology from Kingston University in London (2014-2017). In 2018, she started as a lab manager in the CNP group at CIIMAR. In September 2021 she became a post-doctoral researcher at the same group. In 2022, she was awarded with an FCT-exploratory project to study the interaction between Cyanobacteria and Amoeba in the same group.
Anne Liong, originally from Germany, completed her MSc at RWTH Aachen University in Molecular and Applied Biotechnology, Germany in 2019. Currently she is a FCT PhD student in the Cyanobacterial Natural Products (CNP) team within in the frame of the Biomedical Sciences doctoral program at ICBAS, University of Porto. Her research project includes the deorphanization of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) from cyanobacteria and focuses on the discovery of new fatty acid-harboring natural products and their underlying biosynthesis and enzymology. Anne has multidisciplinary expertise in mass spectrometry analysis, molecular cloning, protein expression and natural products isolation.
With a degree in Biology by the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto (FCUP), in 2020, I'm currently studying for a master’s degree in Functional Biology and Biotechnology of Plants, also at FCUP. My project in Ciimar involves the discovery of cyanobacterial natural products using mass spectrometry.
Diana has a degree in Biochemistry (2017) and a MSc in Applications in Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology (2022) by the University of Porto. Currently, she is a Master Student Fellow for the PROPELLER project in the Cyanobacterial Natural Products team. Her work is manly focused on the heterologous expression of cyanobacterial biosynthetic gene clusters derived from uncultured specimens to uncover new secondary metabolites. Recently, she started to work also in protein expression and purification.
Eunice has a scientific background in developing synthetic biology tools and optimizing cyanobacterial chassis for the production of added-value compounds. She carried out bachelor and master studies at CIIMAR and i3S (University of Porto), respectively. She worked as a visiting researcher at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (Japan) and, after that, she carried out doctoral studies at i3S with a stay at Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain). Eunice joined the CNP team under the BlueBio4Future ERA Chair grant as research technician in microbial genetics and molecular biology.
BSc in Biology, MSc in Cell and Molecular Biology, PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology Applied to Health Sciences (University of Porto).
Francisco Camacho has a degree in Biochemistry and is presently enrolled in the Master’s in Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology, from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto. He will be working on his dissertation at CNP, focusing on the discovery of natural products linked to the interactions between cyanobacteria and amoebae.
Francisco Ramos has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and is currently enrolled in the Master’s in Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto. As part of his dissertation, he will be collaborating with the CNP group, focusing on cyanobacteria engineering for the purpose of producing substances relevant to aquaculture.
I’m currently an MSc student at the University of Algarve, enrolled in the Master in Marine Biology and I’m doing my master’s thesis research within the project “CyanoBOX – Beta-oxidation in cyanobacteria”. Throughout my research career, I have done multiple internships in Portugal, namely at Centre for Functional Ecology (University of Coimbra), Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre (MARE, Figueira da Foz), CCMAR (Centre of Marine Sciences, University of Algarve), and, most recently, I was awarded a research fellowship that allowed me to explore the impacts of climate change on eastern Mediterranean reef species and communities in Haifa, Israel.
João Reis has graduated in Biochemistry by the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto. His journey at CIIMAR began during his MSc degree (Cell and Molecular Biology, FCUP) after joining the CNP group to develop his MSc thesis. During this period, he also enrolled as a Research Technician for the HALVERSITY project. After completing his MSc he joined the FattyCyanos project as a Researcher. Now, in is PhD he focuses on the biosynthesis of cyanobacterial natural products and enzymatic catalysis.
João Pereira has completed his degree in Biochemistry in 2020 by University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro and currently, he is working on his master’s thesis in Applications in Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology, from Faculty of Science of University of Porto. His research is focused on the Discovery of RiPPs and new enzymes from Cyanobacteria.
Bioinspired researcher with MSc in Bioengineering (Faculty of Engineering from the University of Porto) and a strong background in molecular biotechnology. Focused on the use of cyanobacteria as platforms for the production of relevant bioproducts. Hands-on experience in lab and large-scale cultivation of cyanobacteria, microbial genetic engineering techniques, and the isolation/application of cyanobacterial-derived compounds in several relevant areas. After working as a Research Fellow at i3S and as a contracted researcher at Allmicroalgae company he is currently a PhD student, developing his project focused on the use of extracellular vesicles from cyanobacteria as an antigen-delivery platform for oral vaccination of fish at i3S and CIIMAR.
Kathleen Abt graduated from the University of Hamburg, Germany with a BSc (2013) and MSc (2016) in Molecular Life Sciences. She joined the CNP group in 2018 and is currently working on her PhD thesis on the structure and biosynthesis of polyhalogenated fatty acid compounds from cyanobacteria.
Leandro de Mattos Pereira holds a PhD in Computational Biology and Systems from Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz (Brazil) in the concentration area of Functional Genomics, Evolution and Phylogenomics. He worked as postdoctoral research in Bioinformatics in Omics data analysis (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metagenomics) and functional annotation, comparative genomics of Bacteria and Eukaryotes: mining of non-homologous isofunctional enzymes, reconstruction of metabolic pathways, systems biology, metabarcoding, phylogenetics, phylogenomics. His investigation line is to use Bioinformatics/Multi-omics integration in the study of the evolution of metabolic pathways, mining of non-homologous isofunctional enzymes, genes/enzymes with application in Biosynthesis of Natural Products, Biotechnology and Ecological Services.
Marco Preto is mainly involved in the isolation and structural elucidation of new cyanobacterial secondary metabolites.
He received his degree in Chemistry in 2000 (Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto) and completed his PhD in Chemistry in 2009 (Universidade do Minho).
Maria Lígia Sousa graduated in Applied Biology from University of Minho in 2009, receive her MSc (2009) and PhD (2020) from University of Porto. She is developing her research at Blue Biotechnology and Ecotoxicology Laboratory (CIIMAR). Her main research interests are the discovering of new pharmaceuticals or nutraceuticals from marine origin and deciphering the role of these newly found compounds when exposed to human cells, regarding its molecular mechanism from genomics to protein expression, using in particular microtumor models.
Mariana Moutinho has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology (2019) and a Master’s degree in Applications in Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology (2021) from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP). Recently, she joined the CNP team under the BlueBio4Future project, as Research Technician in Biomass/Bioprocess, with the main goal of helping streamline and optimize the culturing and biomass harvesting process, including optimization of the bioprocess to increase productivity or yields of specific metabolites with biotechnological interest originating from cyanobacteria/microalgae.
Mariane Bittencourt Fagundes is graduated in Food Technology by Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM-Brazil), also holds a master and doctorate in Food Science and technology from the same university (UFSM-Brazil). Her main skills are associated with microalgae process optimization, from analytical method development to different cultivation modes for primary and secondary metabolites production.
Marine has a background in Pharmaceutical Sciences with a specialization in Marine Biotechnology. She first joined the CNP team as a master student and developed work towards the optimization of an acyl-acyl carrier protein synthetase inhibitor to study exogenous fatty acid incorporation in cyanobacteria. After graduation, she came back as research assistant and worked on fatty acid incorporation and modification in cyanobacterial natural products (FattyCyanos project). In her free time, she enjoys travelling and scuba diving.
BSc and MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences (University of Poitiers, France), MSc in Applied Blue Biotechnology (University of La Rochelle, France)
I am currently an MSc student at FCUP (Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto), enrolled in the Master in Cell and Molecular Biology. I am developing my master’s thesis at CNP, working to help unveil the intriguing pathway of nucuolin A biosynthesis. During my BSc in Biochemistry, I studied at both FCUP and ICBAS (Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar). In my last year, I was accepted as an intern at i3S (Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde) where I aimed to evaluate the antimycobacterial properties of a group of extracts isolated from actinobacteria living symbiotically with macroalgae.
Paulo Oliveira has a degree in Biology from the U.Porto (Portugal), and a PhD in Biological Sciences from Uppsala University (Sweden), where he did also a post-doc. After returning to Portugal, he joined the Bioengineering and Synthetic Microbiology group at IBMC/i3S, U.Porto. Presently, P.Oliveira is junior researcher at the Cyanobacterial Natural Products group, under the BlueBio4Future project, and Invited Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, U.Porto. He has dedicated his scientific career to the study of cyanobacteria. Lately, he has focused on secretions mechanisms, particularly in the form of extracellular vesicles, and has participated in Synthetic biology initiatives.
Pedro Silva graduated from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto (FEUP) in Bioengineering in 2022. Currently, he is in his first year of a master’s degree in Biological Engineering at the same faculty. At CNP, he is working on cyclic depsipeptides in cyanobacteria. The main objective of his work is to develop methodologies for isolating those compounds that have a significant pharmaceutical and biotechnology potential. He hails from the mid-Atlantic Ocean, specifically São Miguel in the Azores, and is an avid lover of the ocean.
Raquel Castelo Branco has completed her degree in Genetics and Biotechnology in 2009 and Msc degree in Biotechnology of Health Science in 2011 by University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro. She is a postgraduated researcher at Blue Biotechnology and Ecotoxicology (BBE) group and her research interests include microbial biodiversity, microbial ecology and natural products mainly produced by cyanobacteria with biotechnological and pharmacological applications.
Sandra Figueiredo graduated from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, with a Master’s degree in Pharmacy and concluded her Ph.D. studies in Pharmaceutical Sciences in the specialty of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, in 2017, at the same university. In 2016 she was a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, Spain. In brief, during her Ph.D. program, she conducted her research in the field of medicinal/pharmaceutical chemistry and biological sciences which has contributed to her significant expertise in drug discover and the biology of target diseases, mainly cancer. Since February 2018 she has been a postdoctoral researcher, hired under an ERC grant, at Cyanobacterial Natural Products (CNP) Team, CIIMAR, University of Porto, Portugal. Here, she has been working on the discovery of new chemistry and enzymology of cyanobacteria, combining cutting edge and traditional methodologies.
Sara Freitas holds a BsC in Biology and a MsC in Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, both from the Faculty of Sciences of Oporto. In 2017 she started her PhD in Biology at the Blue Biotechnology and Ecotoxicology laboratory (BBE) under the supervision of Dr. Pedro Leão and Prof. Vitor Vasconcelos. The PhD project (SFRH/BD/116009/2016) entitled “Discovery of new chemistry and enzymology from Cyanobacteria”, aims for the isolation of new compounds from relevant phylogenetic cyanobacteria present in the LEGE Culture Collection (LEGE-CC), that can demonstrate pharmacological potential and/or have unique biosynthesis pathways.
I concluded my bachelor’s in Biochemistry by Univeristy of Porto, in 2015. My work in CIIMAR started in the first edition of BYT internships, and since then I have been a member of BBE group. In the moment, I am finishing my master thesis in Biochemistry, on the topic cyanobacterial natural products.
Eusébio, N., Castelo-Branco, R., Sousa, D., Preto, M., D’Agostino, P., Gulder, T.A.M., Leão, P.N.
2022ACS Synth Biol 11(10):3493-3503Martins, T.P., Glasserm, N.R., Kountz, D.J., Oliveira, P., Balskus, E.P., Leão, P.N.
2022ACS Chem Biol, 17(9):2528-2537Figueiredo, S.A.C., Preto, M., Moreira, G., Martins, T.P., Abt, K., Melo, A., Vasconcelos, V.M., Leão, P.N.
2021Angew Chem Int Ed 60(18):10064Reis J.P.A., Figueiredo S.A.C., Sousa M.L., Leão P.N.
2020Nat Commun 11:1458© 2023 CIIMAR – All rights reserved.
