Joana Paredes, PhD

Joana Paredes, PhD, is Group Leader of the Cancer Metastasis group at i3S – Institute for Investigation and Innovation in Health of the University of Porto and Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Porto University. Currently, she is also President of the Portuguese Association for Cancer Research (ASPIC). Joana graduated in Biology at Coimbra University in 1999 and completed her PhD in Human Biology at the Medical Faculty of Porto University in 2004. With the support on a FCT PhD grant, she worked at the Cancer Research Lab of Gent University (Belgium), a reference lab in cell-cell adhesion and cancer. In 2008, she was hired by Ciência 2007 program, to establish a novel independent research line at Ipatimup (Porto, Potugal), related to the role of cell-cell adhesion molecules in cancer stem cell biology. Joana Paredes published as senior author in 2010 and was selected for a competitive iFCT position (Development Grant), in 2013, as an independent researcher.

In 2019, Joana acquired a tenure position at Ipatimup/i3S. Throughout her career, she has been always committed to understand how cell-cell adhesion signaling regulates collective cell invasion, metabolic behavior and stem cell properties of cancer cells, supporting the use of adhesion molecules as prognostic biomarkers in cancer. Currently, she is focused on studying how cell-cell adhesion impacts an increased metastatic behavior. Joana Paredes has published 90 manuscripts in international peer-reviewed journals, which gathered more than 4800 citations by peers, endowing her an h-index of 41. Joana has coordinated research projects funded by FCT, Portugal 2020, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis International, Gulbenkian Foundation, and patient’s associations, such as Laço and No Stomach for Cancer. Her translational work was further recognized with awards from Hologic, AstraZeneca and LPCC. As a mentor, Joana has already supervised or co-supervised 11 PhD students and 21 MSc students. She has also supervised the scientific activities of 8 young research fellows and 6 post-doctoral fellows.