Joana Gaifem holds a degree in Biology (2009, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto) and a Master’s in Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (2011, ICBAS, University of Porto). Joana started her PhD in Ageing and Chronic Diseases at School of Medicine/University of Minho in 2015, under the supervision of Ricardo Silvestre, in a work focused in deciphering the microbiome and metabolic factors that contribute to protection or susceptibility in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). During her PhD, Joana was awarded with an EMBO fellowship to perform collaborative work at Universitätsklinikum Jena (Germany). Joana is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Salomé Pinho’s lab (funded by CEEC2020-FCT) and the main focus of her research is to investigate the role of glycosylation in chronic inflammatory diseases. In 2022 she was awarded with a ESCMID research grant to explore the impact of glycans in gut microbiota and IBD.