Rita Azevedo joined as a research engineer in 2022 at Matondo’s Proteomics Platform, Mass Spectrometry for Biology Utechs (MSBio), Institut Pasteur, Paris, France. She is involved in a conjunct project between Institut Pasteur and Sanofi on the proteomics of Chlamydia trachomatis.
Rita Azevedo has expertise in proteomics, high-resolution mass spectrometry for data-dependent analysis and quantification (PRM), and post-translational modifications in diverse human pathologies. She has a Ph.D. degree in Pathology and Molecular Genetics from the Abel Salazar Biomedical Sciences Institute of the University of Porto, Portugal. Her Ph.D. was done at the Experimental Pathology and Therapeutics Group of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology – Porto under the supervision of Dr. Jose Alexandre Ferreira. Her thesis has set a roadmap for glycobiomarker discovery in bladder cancer (cell lines, biopsies, and urine samples), exploring the full potential of glycomics, glycoproteomics, and high-resolution mass spectrometry. Moreover, it has set the foundations for glycoepitopes synthesis and purification, providing the necessary structural and clinical rationale for supporting the development of novel glycan-based theranostics applications. In 2020, Rita Azevedo had her first abroad experience and started as a post-doctoral researcher in the Pulliainen-laboratory at the University of Turku, Finland. She was interested in conducting proteomics in Salmonellosis models and exploring ADP-ribosylation using high-resolution mass spectrometry (DDA). In 2021, she moved to France and started as a research engineer in the François Becher group at CEA Saclay, Ille-de-France. She characterized and quantified tau protein in Alzheimer’s disease using high-resolution mass spectrometry (DDA and PRM), aiming to find novel tau proteoforms as biomarkers.