Hugo R. Caires received his BSc. degree in Nuclear Medicine from the ESTSP of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, in 2010, where he became an invited assistant professor in 2011. He then moved to ICBAS, University of Porto, as a PhD student of the Pathology and Molecular Genetics doctoral program. He started his PhD research work in September 2012, supervised by Prof. Doctor Catarina R. Almeida, at the Microenvironments for NEWTherapies group of INEB led by Professor Doctor Mário A. Barbosa. Hugo’s PhD work explored the idea that biomaterials could modulate the immune response to control the recruitment and motility of mesenchymal stem cells and fibroblasts, pivotal to determine the likelihood of tissue regeneration or fibrosis, respectively. To pursue this novel concept, Hugo has developed a physiologically relevant triple-cell co-culture 3D system which currently allows a better understanding of the underlying stromal cell recruitment that controls the fate of implanted biomaterials (J Tissue Eng Regen Med, 2017). To further interrogate stem cell dynamical behaviour within such complex 3D microenvironments with a longitudinal perspective, Hugo has developed an innovative 3D live imaging platform, based on the use of fluorescent photoconvertible proteins (Scientific Reports, 2015). Importantly, he applied this imaging platform to understand how the immune cells that accumulate at the scaffolds interface, modulate stem cell migration within distinct engineered 3D matrices (J R Soc Interface, 2016). Under the supervision of Prof. Doctor Melba Navarro, Hugo was also involved in the fabrication of geometrically defined PLA and PLA-G5 scaffolds through 3D printing at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Spain. Hugo was awarded with his PhD degree in September 2016.

Since November 2016, Hugo joined the Cancer Drug Resistance (CDR) group led by Prof. Doctor M. Helena Vasconcelos at IPATIMUP/i3S. As a post-doc researcher, he aims to develop novel strategies to detect minimal residual disease (MRD) and to diagnose multidrug resistance tumour phenotype in liquid tumours. In this framework, Hugo has developed a promising EV-based liquid biopsy approach for the monitoring of MRD in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) patients’ peripheral blood, which has already been submitted as Provisional Patent Proposal (PPP).

Hugo has already developed research in different scientific domains and environments. Importantly, he published in the most prestigious journals of his research fields. Hugo has published 6 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 3 of them as first author. These include publications in top journals of Cell &Tissue Engineering (Biomaterials; IF 8.4; J Tissue Eng Regen Med; IF 3.989; J R Soc Interface; IF3.579); Cell Biology (Stem Cell Reports; IF7.338), Oncology (Oncotarget; IF 5.168),and Multidisciplinary Sciences (Scientific Reports; IF 5.228). Additionally, Hugo is co-inventor of 1 submitted provisional patent proposal.

Besides his post-doc research work, Hugo has successfully co-supervised 1 MSc student thesis has been a reviewer for several scientific journals and was involved in the organization of a 5 day international course on cancer biology (https://cancerbiology.wixsite.com/intensivecourse2018). Importantly, this event had 80 participants and was honoured with the special collaboration of Prof. William Thilly from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.