Marta Filipa Simões

Marta Filipa Simões currently works at the State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences (SKLPlanets), Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), as an assistant professor. She is a microbiologist with a special interest in astrobiology, astromycology, applied microbiology, and mycology, more specifically filamentous fungi and in culture collections and their management. Previously she worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow, at her current institution. Before that, she was an Associate tutor and a Junior Research Fellow at Edge Hill University (UK), where she did research on microbial characterisation and identification and was responsible for the in-house culture collection. Before that, she worked as a Postdoc at the Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, where she worked with marine microbiology and was also responsible for the management of the bacterial culture collection. Marta received her PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering, at the University of Minho, Braga (Portugal). Her PhD research focused on quality management systems based on ISO 9001, isolation, identification, preservation (application of common methodologies and development of alternatives to the standard methods) and characterisation of filamentous fungi (macroscopy, microscopy – SEM, confocal, MALDI-TOF, HPLC, enzymatic screenings, mycotoxin profiles evaluation and typing through molecular biology). Her PhD research was featured in the section “PhD highlights”, on the magazine of the Portuguese Society of Microbiology (2014): www.magazinespm.pt. Before her PhD, she worked as a researcher for the EU project EMbaRC – European Consortium of Microbial Resources Centres (www.embarc.eu/project.html) with research developed on: Management of data from the Micoteca da Universidade do Minho (MUM) within the European collection networking. Before that, she was a researcher at the Centre for Molecular Pathogenesis – Retrovirus and Associated infections unit (CPM-URIA), Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Lisbon, studying the characterisation of lytic genes encoded by mycobacteriophages with antimicrobial activity against mycobacteria. She has a MSc in Clinical Microbiology and a degree in Biotechnological Engineering, during which she worked on the development of prodrugs and tested them, in free form and encapsulated in liposomes, for the treatment of tuberculosis. Current research focus: § Filamentous fungal ecology and biodiversity in environmental analogues to outer space conditions. § Bioprospection and application of filamentous fungi to the production of secondary metabolites with biotechnological relevance for space travel. § Development analysis of filamentous fungi in outer-space and/or Mars-like conditions. § Fungal growth containment and exploitation to our needs (antimicrobials, food enzymes production, mycogenic synthesis of metal nanoparticles) in outer-space conditions. § Improvement of infrastructures and materials for space exploration in order to avoid fungal contaminations and unwanted fungal growth.