I did my Master’s degree in veterinary medicine at the University of Lisbon and throughout my studies I was particularly interested in avian and fish medicine. While trying to explore these fields, I completed my curricular internships at Grefa, a wildlife hospital in Madrid, and at Vasco da Gama Aquarium in Lisbon. In both places, I had direct contact with the implications of antimicrobial resistance in a hospital setting. This experience encouraged me to become more involved in research, deciding to write my master’s dissertation on the surveillance of resistance and virulence properties of E. coli from birds of prey. Following my master’s research, I was hoping to delve more into finding practical solutions and therefore worked as a researcher in the FishVen project, where, together with an experienced team, we compared the diversity in the protein composition of temperate fish venoms to evaluate their potential in antimicrobial drug discovery. Currently, I am enrolled in the Biology PhD program at the University of Aveiro and I will be joining the team as we try to unveil the antimicrobial properties of the mucus of Elysia spp., allowing me to continue my search for alternatives for known antimicrobial drugs and contributing to the fight against one of the most serious global threats we face nowadays.

Keywords: Elysia crispata, One Health, antimicrobial resistance, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, molecular biology