Patrícia Henriques (linkedin.com/in/patriciachenriques) is a Bioengineer (integrated MSc at FEUP, 2014), with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (INEB/FEUP, 2021, supervisor Inês Gonçalves), and currently a Project Manager at i3S. She is also co-founder of a startup, GOTECH Antimicrobial.

Patrícia has had Research Assistant positions at INEB and LEPABE/FEUP, working mostly on antimicrobial surfaces’ development. She started her PhD in 2017 focused on "Exploring antibacterial graphene-based biomaterials for hemodialysis catheters", and during that period (2017-2022), she published 12 papers, 6 as first author, presented her work in several conferences (19 oral , 13 poster presentations, participating in 2 as startup representative), co-supervised 5 students (one ongoing), and played a role as manuscript reviewer. Patrícia received 7 awards and participated in several initiatives for enhancing public awareness of science, being part of the GreenLab initiative at i3S. She also participated in the tech transfer training program Hitech One and Two (2020).

Patrícia is co-inventor of two patents, the last one already getting validation in national phases (Reusable integrated sterilization system for medical devices). She also co-wrote a book chapter (Ch 12. Graphene: an ally for antibacterial biomaterials, 2022) and participated in several projects, helping to write more dedicatedly two of them – Caixa Research Validate (2021) and Innovator Award from Wellcome Trust (2022), both awarded. 

After finishing her PhD and attending some career changing workshops at i3s, she decided to actually make a shift on her career to technology transfer and project management. She co-founded a startup, GOTECH Antimicrobial, with Inês Gonçalves, in 2021, after participating in the EIT Jumpstarter and receiving the second prize in the Health sector. Patrícia participated in the Caixa Research Validate program, consolidating her training with the Tech Transfer Leadership in Life Sciences program from Barcelona School of Management (UPF). She attended an IP Management workshop at i3S and a General Course on IP from WIPO (2021), to better understand the possibilities and relevance of IP protection. To strengthen her knowledge in the regulatory affairs of medical devices, Patrícia attended several workshops and a certified training by IPN (certification nº 72/2022) on the new MDR 2017/754 implemented in Europe (50h). She also attended a Research Project Management training at i3S to better perform her duties as Project Manager of the Innovator Award project (2022-2025). She attended 3 courses on scientific writing and some webinars on FAIR data.

Patrícia’s interests include biomaterials, microbiology, and surface modification towards the design of antimicrobial surfaces. She is also very interested on the process of translating lab developed technologies to the market, and all that it takes to accomplish that – IP protection, regulatory affairs, interaction with stakeholders, company creation, business plan development, marketing, pitch presentation, and so on. She wants to take their graphene-based light-activated catheter cap to the market, and make it the gold standard for patients dealing with the suffering of hemodialysis catheter-related infections.

Find me on LinkedIn

Find my startup (GOTECH Antimicrobial) on LinkedIn