Rodolfo Simões

Rodolfo Dinis Pinto Simões completed his Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry in the University of Coimbra in 2020, with a final project focusing on the therapeutic value of phenolic compounds in the context of Alzheimer's disease. In 2020, he initiated his Master's degree in Biochemistry in the University of Porto, where he took part in an extracurricular internship consisting on the development of a review paper, soon to be submitted for review. In continuation of the work developed during his internship, he developed his Master's thesis titled "Dietary Polyphenols and Food Allergies: Effect on Bioaccessibility and Bioavailability of Milk Allergens", again at the Food Polyphenol Lab of LAQV REQUIMTE, supervised by Rosa Pérez Gregorio e Susana Soares. During his Master's degree, he was granted an EIT Food RIS Fellowship to work at IMDEA Food in Madrid (Spain). The work developed during this fellowship was focused mainly on the characterization of macrophage phenotypes, their implication for cow's milk allergy and the use of tea polyphenols for the modulation of macrophage phenotype. After the conclusion of his Master’s Degree, Rodolfo was awarded a research fellowship under the cLabel+ project (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-046080), with the aim of to develop products with natural ingredients and limited additives that are capable of meeting consumers expectations regarding safety, quality and nutritional value. His research aims to study the effect of polyphenols on the digestion and allergenicity of milk proteins, their capacity to modulate different cells of the immune system and their effect on the composition of bacterial populations encountered throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Rodolfo has experience in several procedures related to the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology, such as cell culture and treatment, cell viability assays (MTT assay and neutral red), bacterial culture and treatment, protein extraction and quantification, quantification of extracellular metabolites with mass spectrometry, SDS-Gel Electrophoresis, fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACs) and RT-qPCRs.