Liliana Sofia Meireles da Costa has completed her bachelor´s degree in Genetics and Biotechnology in 2014 at the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. She then obtained her master’s degree in Biotechnology for the Health Sciences in 2017, in the same institution. During her academic course, she had the opportunity to become acquainted with several different areas and techniques of research such as genetics, molecular and cell biology. She also worked at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (UK) where she was able to map for the first time the Y chromosome of a gibbon species by using fluorescent in situ hybridization. Throughout this work she was able to acknowledge the importance of model systems and biomedical studies for therapeutics research. Currently she is a PhD student at the ICVS (Life and Health Sciences Research Institute), integrated in the Translational Neurogenetics research team. She is focused on the discovery of molecular mechanisms and therapeutics for Machado-Joseph disease, by searching for nuclear ataxin-3 protein-protein interactions. She is interested in the field of Neurosciences in general and more particularly in neurodegenerative diseases and the physiological function of the disease-related proteins, as a way of better understand the pathological mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, which may contribute for development of more efficient therapeutic strategies.