Alexandra Carvalho

Assistant Investigator at Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC), Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal

Alexandra Carvalho research interests are focused on enzyme catalysis and evolution. She has acquired, during her career, expertise in fundamental and applied computational enzymology, which allows her to successfully reengineer enzymes.

She graduated in Biochemistry from Porto University and in 2004 was granted a FCT individual PhD grant to work with Prof. Maria João Ramos (Computational Chemistry group - Porto University) in collaboration with Prof. Matthias Bickelhaupt (Vrije University). In 2008 she received a post- doctoral FCT grant to study DNA/RNA enzymes at Porto University. During this time she was also a research visitor at Stony Brook State University, New York, working with Prof. Carlos Simmerling. In 2012 she earned a prestigious Beatriu de Pinós fellowship at the Institute of Computational Chemistry and Catalysis, with Prof. Marcel Swart (Girona University), where she worked in force field development (Hess_par program) and in simulations of iron-sulfur cluster metalloenzymes.  In 2013, she moved to Uppsala University as a senior researcher to work with Prof. Lynn Kamerlin. There she studied enzyme promiscuity and how it is related to evolution. From May 2015 to December 2016 she worked for Almac Sciences in the development of new biocatalysts. These projects resulted in several new rational designed enzymes with proven industrial applicability in different fields (Pharmaceutical industry, Agriculture, Chemistry).

She is currently a FCT researcher at CNC and PI of the group Rational Protein engineering at UC-Biotech.