Cristina Viegas, PhD

Cristina A. Viegas graduated in Chemical Engineering at IST in 1984, after which her formation and scientific interests were focused on the areas Microbiology / Biotechnology / Biological Sciences. She obtained a MSc in Biotechnology (Biochemical Engineering, 1988) and a PhD in Biotechnology (1993) from IST-Lisbon Technical University, and moved to the Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology (Molecular Microbial Ecology Group) in Oxford, UK, as a post-doc visiting scientist during 1995. She is presently an Assistant Professor at the Bioengineering Department (DBE) in IST, teaching Genetic Engineering (lab), Introduction to Biological Sciences (lab), Environmental Biotechnology (focusing Ecotoxicology and Bioremediation of polluted environments) and Microbiology, to various BSc and MSc degrees. She is the coordinator of the Biological Sciences teaching laboratory of DBE.
She is also a researcher at the Institute of Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB), at IST. In the last decade, her research interests in the Biological Sciences research group have been mainly related with: (i) yeast-based transcriptomics and gene expression bioassays for the prediction of toxicological risks of environmental samples (e.g. associated with textile wastewaters, pesticide release through the soil-water pathway and xenobiotics release from construction materials in façades and landfills due to raining events); (ii) the optimization of bacteria-based bioremediation strategies for the clean-up of soils polluted with chlorinated s-triazine herbicides; and (iii) the morphological and phylogenetic characterization of bacterial and fungal diversity in biocolonization stains found on the surface of building façades made of thermal insulation materials. She co-authored about 40 peer-reviewed papers in international scientific journals and 6 international book chapters.