Sandrina
Campos Maçãs

Curious about circuits: how the brain and spinal cord stay connected through health, ageing, and disease.

I studied Biochemistry at the University of Beira Interior in Portugal before two Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships took me across Europe: first to Lund, Sweden, making brain-targeting antibodies, then to Madrid, Spain, characterizing optogenetic neural stem cells for Parkinson’s disease. Neuroscience caught me on that last project. Today I’m finishing my PhD in Cologne, Germany, anatomically mapping how the spinal cord sends information to the brain, and I’ve grown curious about how these circuits are shaped by sex, development, and ageing.