PhD thesis

Aida obtained her Master degree in 2014 in Medicine and Molecular Oncology from the University of Porto, Portugal. She worked on the development of gene delivery nanoparticles based on biopolymers for the regeneration of peripheral neurons.
In 2015 she moved to the Netherlands and started her PhD on the development of polymeric micelles loaded with hydrophobic compounds for the treatment of blood cancers under the supervision of Professor dr. Raymond Schiffelers (University Medical Centre Utrecht) and Professor dr. Wim Hennink (Utrecht University). During her PhD, she worked in several projects in collaboration with academic institutions (Dr Richard Groen, Amsterdam UMC and Dr. Maike Buchner-Mayr, TUM Germany) and industrial partners (Excytex, Enceladus and SunPharma).

In 2020, she started working as post-doctoral researcher at the Princess Maxima Centre for paediatric oncology on the group of Dr Ronald Stam. During this time, she developed patient-derived xenografts of high-risk acute myeloid leukemia and established a mouse-adapted paediatric induction therapy for paediatric acute myeloid leukemia.

In 2022 she joined the Regenerative Orthopedics group as post-doctoral researcher on the NWO Vici project “NC-CHOICE” where she will focus on the development of an RNA-based and cell free nanomedicine to treat lower back pain.

Current supervision:

• Willemijn van der Heijden (MSc student RMT)
• Mario Montelongo Gallegos (MSc student RMT)