Helena M. Figueiredo is a MSc student in Health Sciences at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS)/School of Medicine, at University of Minho. She completed her BSc in Biochemistry at the School of Sciences at the same university, in 2022, where her passion for science and research was cemented. Having concluded the first year of the MSc, fields such as neurosciences, immunology, genetics, biostatistics, and laboratory animal sciences were explored and a more prominent curiosity for oncology emerged.
At the moment, Helena is developing her master’s thesis titled “Clinical value of a WNT6-driven Molecular Signature in Glioblastoma Liquid Biopsies”, supervised by Dr. Céline S. Gonçalves and Dr. Bruno M. Costa at ICVS. The aim of this research is to explore novel biomarkers in liquid biopsies, with particular focus on the extracellular vesicles (EVs) cargo. Specifically, to evaluate the feasibility of liquid biopsies based on the isolation of extracellular vesicles from glioblastoma patients’ blood samples and the analysis of a WNT6 signature, which may allow for a less invasive, more informative, and sequential method for improved monitoring and prognostic capacity.