Sara Bernardes Pereira completed her degree in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto in 2005. In that year, she joined the Cellular and Applied Microbiology group at the IBMC - Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, where she carried out her scientific training period. In 2010 she obtained her PhD in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto. As a PhD student she spent several periods in foreign laboratories, namely in the Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, University of Florence (Italy) and Department of Chemical and Process Engineering/Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom). From 2011 she is a postdoctoral researcher in the Bioengineering and Synthetic Microbiology group at the IBMC. Her main research areas are the cellular and molecular biology of cyanobacteria, bioremediation and the cyanobacterial extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). She has been involved in several research projects, bi-lateral actions and organization of international scientific meeting, and published 10 papers in international peer review journals/book chapters.