Retina4Future - COST Action CA24105

Short Bio: I conducted my PhD in Genetics after completing my Biology studies at the University of Barcelona. My doctoral work focused on elucidating the function of CERKL, a gene implicated in inherited retinal dystrophies, and included the characterization of a knockout mouse model for this gene. Afterward, I explored the role of Ubiquitin and SUMO signaling in photoreceptor cell fate determination. In October 2012, I joined the Blindness Genetic Therapy group at the Department of Human Genetics, Radboud University Medical Center, as a postdoctoral researcher. There, I contributed to the development of innovative therapeutic approaches based on antisense technology for inherited retinal disorders. Since January 2021, I have been leading research efforts on developing models to accelerate the development of molecular (mainly antisense olgionucleotides) therapies for retinal and neurometabolic diseases within the Departments of Pediatrics and Human Genetics at Radboudumc.

Short Bio: I am a 2nd year medical student at “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy and I am passionate about cell biology, genetics and oncology.

Short Bio: Ana Raquel Sarabando Santiago (Ana Raquel Santiago, ARS) is Assistant Professor (area of Immunology) at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC) and a researcher at the Coimbra Institute for Clinical and Biomedical Research (iCBR) of FMUC and at Centre for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology. She is a member of the Board of the Portuguese Glial Network and of the Core Team of GreenLab@CiBB. She is the Coordinator of the Animal Facility in FMUC and the President of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of iCBR-FMUC. She is also a collaborator at the Association for Innovation and Biomedical Research on Light (AIBILI). ARS is a Biochemist with a PhD in Cell Biology (2008), with part of the experimental work performed at Penn State College of Medicine (USA) and Institute for Neurosciences and Amsterdam Medical Center (The Netherlands). During her PhD, ARS studied the mechanisms by which glutamate excitotoxicity contributes to retinal neurodegeneration in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy, the leading complication of diabetes. As a post-doctoral FCT fellow, she joined iCBR and started a new line of research on the study of neuroinflammation and neuroprotection in glaucoma, a leading cause of vision loss worldwide. As a post-doc, she also worked at the laboratories of Elena Vecino (Basque Country University, Spain) and David Calkins (Vanderbilt Eye Institute, USA). Currently, ARS has been interested in the contribution of glial cells and neuroinflammation to retinal neurodegeneration, and the identification of therapeutic strategies for retinal diseases targeting neuroprotection and neuroinflammation control. She published 57 papers in internationals peer-reviewed journals, with an h-index of 30 and 2114 citations (as of February 22, 2025). ARS has participated in important and renowned national and international scientific meetings in the field of eye and vision research and neuroinflammation (17 oral communications by invitation). The work developed or coordinated by ARS has been presented in more than 170 poster presentations in scientific meetings. Raquel Santiago has attracted competitive funding from national and international agencies in highly competitive calls (8 projects as Principal Investigator, 20 as team member, and 2 projects as research fellow). She has organized several scientific meetings, including symposia in international meetings. She supervised 5 PhD students, 13 Msc students, 2 post-docs, and project fellows. She has been in the jury of Msc and PhD thesis, including as main opponent, and she has been actively collaborating with Doctoral and Master courses of FMUC. She is member of the editorial board of Cell Biology, Journal of Ophthalmology and Scientific Reports. She is Associate Editor in Frontiers in Pharmacology, Frontiers in Neuroscience and Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience and she is/was guest editor of several special issues related with the contribution of microglia to neurodegeneration and with therapeutic strategies for retinal diseases. She has been acting as reviewer in several scientific journals and as project evaluator for the German Research Foundation, Dutch Research Council, UK Medical Research Council, among other funding agencies. ARS has also participated in several science communication activities including the World Sight Day, Brain Awareness week, European Researchers Night, as well as in other activities related with science dissemination to high school students. She is part of the Outreach Committee of Portuguese Glial Network.