Mónica Bettencourt-Dias is a biochemist and cellular biologist, who is the head of the Cell Cycle Regulation Research Group. 

Her research involves cell cycle regulation, for which she has been recognized as the recipient of the Pfizer Award for Basic Research, the Keith Porter Prizer from the American Society for Cell Biology and the Eppendorf Young European Investigator Award.

She was also selected as a 2009 European Molecular Biology Organization Young Investigator Fellow and inducted as a member of the EMBO in 2015. 

Mónica Bettencourt-Dias is the Director of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência since February 2018.

Caren Norden is Deputy Director for Science

Scientific Career

Since 2010
Research Group Leader at the MPI-CBG
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2006-2010
Postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
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2002-2006
PhD in Biology, Institute of Biochemistry, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Elias Barriga, PhD - Gulbenkian Institute of Science, Oeiras, Portugal

E. Barriga received his B. Sc. in Biology at the Universidad Austral de Chile and his Ph. D. in Molecular Biosciences at the Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile.

He carried out postdoctoral research at the London Centre for Nanotechnology (through EMBO and Marie Sklodowskiej-Curie Funds) and University College London Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in the United Kingdom. Nowadays, he is the Principal Investigator in Mechanisms in Morphogenesis lab at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science. Dr Barriga’s group focusses in understanding how large groups of cells synchronize their collective migratory behavior to confer robustness to tissue morphogenesis in embryo development and regeneration. For that, his group investigates the Mechanical and Electrical control of Collective Cell Migration in vivo. Since 2021, Dr Barriga is an ERC Starting and EMBO Installation Grants awardee as well as a La Caixa fellow. From 2022 Dr Barriga has been selected as part of the EMBO-YIP network.

Ana Aranda da Silva.

Experience in Science Administration and Management as the assistant of the IGC PhD Programme and later as the IGC Training Coordinator, having gained experience over the past three years in Education and Training Management, as well as career development. Eight years experience as an independent researcher expert in deep-sea biology and ecology. Have trained a research team and set up a laboratory for the morphological and molecular analysis of benthic organisms and sediments through a funded project. The work focused on promoting the sustainable use of marine resources and its value, one of the best natural resources available to Portugal, and at the same time ensuring the systematic assessment of the environmental status and biodiversity preservation, contributing to maintain a good environmental status in the marine environment by 2020, a requisite from the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Valuable social and organizational skills such as communication and leadership skills, strategic and problem-solving thinking, strong teamwork focus and excellent time management and planning skills, demonstrated by ISI publications an communications in several international conferences with collaborations from a vast network of international contacts.