Diana B. Sequeira Completed her B.Sc. in Dental Medicine (Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra), M.Sc. in Dental Medicine (Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra) and PhD in Experimental Biology and Biomedicine (2022) (Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, University of Coimbra) at the University of Coimbra. She has been an Invited Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra since 2010, and Researcher at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology. She has received six awards/distinctions, including the 2019 Pierre Fabre Award for Best Oral Research Communication, Congress of the Order of Dentists (Lisbon, 2019). Her work centers on the area of Medical and Health Sciences with an emphasis on clinical medicine, biomaterials and technologies involving the manipulation of dental stem cells and animal models.

Patrícia Diogo is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Coimbra. She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC) in 2012 and completed a doctoral Programme in Health Sciences (2018) from FMUC and post-graduation work in the oral surgery of impacted wisdom teeth (2020) at the Cooperative of Higher Education Egas Moniz. She is an Auxiliary Professor of Endodontics (2020) at FMUC in the disciplines of Endodontics I, Endodontics III and Endodontics Post-Graduation. She is a Certified Member (2022) of the European Society of Endodontology (ESE). Additionally, she is an integrated member of the Institute of Endodontics at FMUC; Medical Microbiology (MM) from the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) and the Center for Innovation and Research in Oral Sciences (CIROS) at FMUC. Her main subjects are endodontics, dentistry and oral surgery. Her research is focused mainly on antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT); biofilms; endodontic microbial infections and root resorptions.

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João Peça is a Professor at the University of Coimbra and Group Leader at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC-UC). He completed his PhD research at Duke University, where he created the first transgenic mice for channelrhodopsin-2 and pioneered the field of optogenetics. He performed postdoctoral research at MIT characterizing animal models for autism, where he uncovered a new role for cortico-striatal dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders. His present interests center on the use of advanced models to understand how genetic and environmental risk factors translate to neuronal circuit alterations in neuropsychiatric disorders. He has been an FCT Investigator (2013), won a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (2014) and has been a NARSAD Young Investigator (2014–2016). In 2019 he won the “Pfizer Prize in Basic Research”, the oldest and one of the most prestigious prizes in Portugal in the area of Biomedical Sciences, and was awarded a “Special Recognition—Science” in 2022 by the World Cultural Council, Switzerland. He is a Board Member of CNC-UC, is Treasurer of the Portuguese Society for Neuroscience, coordinates the Masters programme in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the Department of Life Science, University of Coimbra and is a member of the Board of Educators for “Neurasmus: the European Masters in Neuroscience”.

Dr. Santos received his degree in Dentistry in 1995 and received his MSD in Experimental Pathology in 2000 from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. In 2001, he received a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to complete an internship in the Department of Endodontics at the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto in Canada. Dr. Santos became a Certified Member of the European Society of Endodontology in 2004 and achieved their PhD in Dentistry in 2008 from the University of Coimbra (summa cum laude). He is an International Member of the American Association of Endodontists and an Active Member of the International Association of Dental Traumatology. He is a Professor of Endodontics at the University of Coimbra (pre-grad and post-grad), the ERASMUS Departmental Coordinator for Dentistry, and the Vice President of the Portuguese Society of Endodontology.