Cell Scientist to Watch – Eurico Morais-de-Sá

Eurico Morais-de-Sá graduated in biochemistry from the University of Porto, Portugal. After a research internship in protein crystallography at the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMC) in Porto, Eurico moved to Cambridge, UK, to do his PhD with Daniel St Johnston at the Gurdon Institute. During this time, he studied cell polarity in the context of epithelial tissue and body-axis specification. In 2011, he was awarded EMBO and Marie Curie fellowships to return to Porto for his postdoctoral work with Claudio Sunkel at IBMC, where he used his cell polarity expertise to understand the regulatory processes of epithelial cell division. In 2018, Eurico established his own research group at Instituto de Inovação e Investigação em Saúde (i3S) focusing on the mechanisms by which epithelial cells modulate spatial asymmetry during cell division to maintain the function and integrity of proliferative tissues.