Helder is currently an Invited Ajunct Professor at the School of Health (Polytechnic Institute of Porto). He holds a degree in Pathologic, Cytologic and Thanatologic Anatomy from ESTSP - Polytechnic of Porto, a Master degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Aveiro and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from ICBAS - University of Porto. He started, in 2010, as a research fellow at the Molecular Evolution group at IBMC, working on the molecular characterization of lifespan in Drosophila americana. He then moved into Reto Gassmann's lab in 2013, where he started as a Lab Manager and Research Technician, and then continued as a PhD student, working on understanding how the Protein Phosphatase 4 complex regulates several steps of mitosis in C. elegans. His current work focuses on how dynein is recruited by different classes of adaptor proteins that confer cargo specificity and help activate the motor.