e.biofilm — Group of Excellence on Engineered Biofilms

We’re pleased to welcome back Vânia Pinheiro! 🇵🇹🇺🇸

Our PhD student, Vânia Pinheiro, has returned to Portugal after an impactful 3-month research stay in the USA, where she carried out part of her doctoral work at the Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE), Montana State University-Bozeman, under the supervision of our project coordinator Darla Goeres and Professor Ross Carlson.

During this period, Vânia expanded the study of the in vitro chronic wound model she previously developed at Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, taking it to the CBE to evaluate how Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus adapt to chemical stress and environmental changes. This was also a great opportunity to showcase her PhD work, by presenting a research poster at the Montana Biofilm Meeting (MBM) 2026. 🔬📄

It’s great to have you back, Vânia! We can’t wait to see the next steps of your PhD journey! 🚀🎓

They say good things come in threes! 🎓✨

To wrap up an incredible week for the e.Biofilm Project, our MSc student, Ana Catarina Santos, has successfully defended her Master’s thesis entitled: “Regulation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa RpoS and Las Quorum-sensing genes in response to Candida albicans: a Gene-PNA-FISH study of interkingdom biofilms”, at ICBAS- Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences.

Catarina showed outstanding commitment throughout her research, supervised by Laura Cerqueira.

A special thanks to Dr. Cláudia Monteiro for the enriching discussion and thoughtful feedback provided during the session.

Congratulations, Catarina! 🎉 We couldn’t be prouder of your achievement and wish you a future filled with great success!

The good news keep coming at e.Biofilm Project! 🎉

Our MSc student, Rita Maurício, has successfully defended her Master’s thesis entitled: “Study of the role of flagella motility flaA gene on biofilm formation of 𝘓𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘺𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴 using mRNA PNA-FISH”, at Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto.

Throughout her journey, Rita demonstrated incredible dedication, working under the supervision of Laura Cerqueira.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Dr. Gonçalo Almeida for the valuable insights and constructive discussion during the defense.

Congratulations, Rita! 🎓✨ We are extremely proud of your hard work and achievements, and we wish you the greatest success in this new chapter!

The annual Montana Biofilm Meeting has wrapped up, and we are proud to share our presence at the Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE).

Special highlight our PhD student, Vânia Pinheiro, who is currently in Montana as part of her PhD. She successfully presented our latest scientific poster:
📄 “Quantitative Analysis of Spatial Organization in a Dual-Species Chronic Wound Biofilm Model”
✍🏻 Vânia Pinheiro, Francisco Pereira, Joana Vilas Boas, Al Parker, Marta Tedim, Ross Carlson, Andreia S. Azevedo, Darla Goeres.

This collaboration is built on deep roots: our project coordinator, Darla Goeres, has been a core member of the CBE and part of this event’s organization for many years, making these international synergies even stronger.

Thank you to the CBE community for welcoming our research and driving the future of biofilm science! 🚀