Eva Mariana de Sousa Cunha

Background:

I am a researcher in the Structural Biology and Drug Discovery (Luecke) Group at NCMM, funded by an H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Individual Fellowship

For the past two years I worked at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany, in the Kudryashev group, where we were interested in solving high-resolution structures of membrane proteins using Cryo-electron microscopy. 

Previously in my scientific career I have combined biophysical and structural biology techniques to understand how proteins fold and interact. As a Postdoctoral fellow at CICbioGUNE, Spain, in the Abrescia group I used x-ray crystallography to study Hepatitis C virus cellular receptors. 

As a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University, USA in the Barrick group I used biophysics and thermodynamics to unravel how cellulases can be engineered to improve stability and enzymatic activity.  

Over the last three years, remarkable progress has been achieved in the field of Cryo-EM, substantially increasing the signal-to-noise ratio, resulting in structure determination at near-atomic resolution. I therefore believe that now is the perfect time to invest into and develop the field of Cryo-EM targeting important scientific problems that affect society at large.