António Roldão

Antonio Roldãois the Head of Vaccine Development Laboratory at Animal Cell Technology (ACT) Unit (Health & Pharma Division, iBET) and Investigador FCT (iBET and ITQB-NOVA).

Antonio Roldao graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and holds a PhD in Engineering and Technology Sciences, Systems Biology from ITQB-NOVA.

Working in ACT Unit since 2004, his PhD focused on the design and implementation of in silicomathematical models for process control and optimization of a human vaccine candidate, namely Rotavirus-VLPs. His work pioneered the area as for the first time a comprehensive, integrative view of the production system was capture in mathematical and thermodynamic equations. Following PhD he was geared towards having a deeper understanding of Systems Biology and how one could apply it to bioprocess engineering. The next, obvious step was to move to Jens Nielsen lab at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden (2010-2014), the top cited scientist working in metabolic engineering of yeast cells for generation of novel products. During those 3 years period he was a senior researcher and director of fermentation technology, and developed a full set of “omics” skills that will undoubtedly show its usefulness for detailed characterization of his cell factory model and/or rational host engineering. In 2014 he decided to move back to ACT Unit at iBET, and apply the know-how acquired during PhD and post-doc periods to the development of biologics and processes for vaccines production. As Head of Vaccine Development Laboratory at ACT Unit, he is heavily involved in five EU funded projects and in multiple service driven projects focused on vaccines and protein production.