 Pedro Andrade has recently been awarded with a PhD in Bioengineering by Instituto Superior Técnico under the MIT Portugal Program. Together with 4 fellow PhD students, he found the company Cell2B in January of this year. Cell2B is giving its first steps into establishing itself as a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of a new line of healthcare therapies to prevent and treat organ rejection in patients undergoing organ or tissue transplants.
1) How did you learn about the MIT Portugal Program and what motivated you to apply for the Bioengineering Systems PhD? My first contact with the MIT-P program was on a seminar by Prof Joaquim Cabral, one of the coordinators of the Bioengineering Systems Program. I was very excited with the possibility of being part of such an amazing program, gathering different universities, both in Portugal and at MIT, especially in a cutting edge area of Bioengineering. 2) What was your research project about and what did you to achieved? My research project aimed at the expansion of hematopoietic stem cells (that give origin to the cells that compose the blood) from the umbilical cord blood for cell therapy applications. 3) What are the major benefits of this project on peoples' lives? My project contributes for the wide spreading use of Umbilical Cord Blood as a source of hematopoietic stem cells to treat blood-related diseases, in particular providing tools to expand the number of cells obtained in each UCB unit, that will ultimately enable their use in adult patients. 4) How do you see this area evolving in the future? Stem cell (Bio)Engineering is one of the most exciting topics nowadays and will most certainly have important impact in the future of Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering 5) How do you think this kind of research project/ international partnership can contribute to positively impact Portugal's economic development? The most valuable outcomes of the MIT-P projects, is the science/technology-based knowledge. In my opinion, as soon as we can put that knowledge in a way that is attractive to the market, it will generate economic value. That is even more urgent in Portugal, that certainly develops high-standard science and technology and will hopefully step forward towards innovation. 6) Now that you have finished your PhD, what are your plans? And in which was this influenced/ determined by your PhD at IST under the MIT Portugal Program? Together with 3 colleagues (David, Daniela and Francisco) we founded Cell2b, a Biotech startup company, aiming to develop cell therapy solutions that will provide new treatments for transplant-related complications. For that, we are now working with regulatory agencies for procedure approval. In parallel, and because these are extremely new and exciting fields, I plan to be strongly linked to R&D and looking forward to embrace a post doctoral research project at Stem Cell Bioengineering Laboratory, at IST. | 
