Joana obtained her PhD in Biochemistry and Biotechnology from the ITQB, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (PT) in 2006. Her studies (2002-2006) were performed at the Research Center Borstel/Leibniz Lung Center (DE), in the field of biomolecular diagnostic for tick-borne diseases. After a postdoc at the Animal Cell Technology Unit at IBET, Oeiras (PT) focusing in Tissue Engineering and 3D liver models, in 2009 she was granted an individual FCT Ciência2008 fellowship and moved to iMed/Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon (FFUL), to work with advanced liver models for in vitro toxicology. In 2015, she was awarded with and FCT researcher grant (IF2015) to pursue her interests in 3D models, stem cell biology for predictive toxicology and regenerative medicine. In 2018 she became an assistant professor FFUL and in 2021 she established her lab at iMed. Joana is also a board member of the Portuguese Society of Stem Cells and Cell Therapy (SPCE-TC), is the National Co-coordinator of the European Registered Toxicologist since 2017 and has served as coordinator of the toxicology section of the Portuguese Society of Pharmacology (SPF) until 2019.