Sandra Sousa is a microbiologist with deep interest in Host-pathogen interactions. She obtained a PhD in the laboratory of Pascale Cossart (Institut Pasteur, Paris) studying the bacterial mechanisms triggering key host signaling pathways to facilitate bacterial invasion of mammalian cells. S. Sousa has been focusing her research on the understanding of mechanisms of host usurpation by relevant human pathogens. She has extensive expertise in host cytoskeleton remodeling induced in response to bacterial infection and to bacterial plasma membrane damaging factors, such as secreted pore-forming toxins. S. Sousa leads the group of Cell Biology of Bacterial Infections at i3S since June 2019. S. Sousa published more than 40 articles in high impact peer-reviewed journals (1900 citations, h-index 20), completed the supervision of 4 PhD thesis and 8 MSc dissertations, and secured funds to her research. Her current research focus on intracellular responses to plasma membrane damage caused by pore-forming toxins, which are secreted by relevant human pathogens and play key roles in infection. In particular, she concentrates on plasma membrane and actomyosin remodeling, ER disruption and calcium signaling upon damage induced by different pore-forming toxins.