Luísa Pinto is graduated in Biochemistry from the University of Coimbra and performed an internship at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) on therapeutic tools for Parkinson’s Disease. She holds a PhD in Neurosciences by the Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universität München (Germany). She is currently an Assistant Researcher with tenure and team coordinator of the “Brain circuits and neuron-glia adaptations” thematic line at ICVS, focusing on novel therapeutics for Depression and Neurodegenerative Disorders. She is also an Invited Assistant Professor at the School of Medicine, University of Minho, CEO of the start-up company “BNML–Behavioural & Molecular Lab” and co‐founder Member of the European College of NeuroPsychopharmacolgy (ECNP) Thematic Network on Resilience.
With the goal of establishing a mechanistic link between brain neuro-glio plasticity and depression, research in her group led to i) demonstration that hippocampal cytogenesis is essential for the sustained remission from depression using animal models; ii) deeper understanding of processes implicated in the onset, treatment and recurrence of depression by characterizing the cellular signatures of antidepressants; iii) first proof that AP2y crucially modulates adult glutamatergic neurogenesis and cognition; iv) uncover a critical role of epigenetic mechanisms, namely TET3, in brain plasticity and hippocampal-dependent behaviors. Her research skills cover stem cell biology; assessment of neuroplastic events; behavioural tests; electrophysiological techniques; stem cell cultures, pre‐clinical animal models and iPSCs generation. Luísa Pinto currently coordinates a team of 1 Junior Researcher, 1 Post-Doc, 9 PhD and 1 MSc students. She authored and co‐authored more than 80 scientific publications, cited above 3000 times (h index=31).
She has received several distinctions for her work including the Nature Research Award for Driving Global Impact (runner up, 2019).