Ana Carolina Monteiro graduated in Bioengineering, Molecular Biotechnology field, from Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto and Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar in 2018.

During her studies, she enroled in a curricular internship in the Bioengineered Surfaces Group, at i3s, where she worked on the optimization of a biofunctional coating for blood-contacting materials. She then joined the Nerve Regeneration Group, where she developed her Master Thesis, under the supervision of Dr. Mónica Sousa, focusing on the study of molecules and mechanisms that would enhance axonal growth following a spinal cord injury.

From 2019 to 2021 she was a research fellow (MSc) in the Neuro & Skeletal Circuits group. During this time her work was mainly focused on the optimization of a triculture model comprising bone cells, endothelial cells, and sensory neurons in a microfluidic platform. This model aimed at assessing how inflammatory conditions affect the bone microenvironment, namely its vascularization and innervation, and to eventually act as a drug screening platform. 

She is currently a PhD Student in the same group, and her workplan aims at unraveling the mechanisms of nociception at the bone metastatic niche, by enabling a microfluidic model with functional readouts of signal propagation through sensory neurons and quantification of neuropeptides release at central level.