Susana Nunes

EDUCATION

College / University

University of Porto

Highest Degree

Bachelor of Science

Major Subjects

Biology

Country

Portugal

Lab Experience

Bacterial, mammalian, and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (chlamy) cell culture. Molecular biology and biochemistry techniques: restriction cloning, PCR, gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE, Native PAGE, Agarose), western blot, protein purification and DNA purification (large scale) with chromatography (IMAC, SEC, AC, IEX), MNase digestion, transfection in mammalian cells, biolistic chloroplast transformation in chlamy, RNA and gDNA extraction, cell fixation and permeabilization, immunocytochemistry, liposome preparation, click chemistry, UV crosslinking, , luciferase report assays. Microscopy: light microscopy, Multi color STED microscopy, sample vitrification and grid clipping for cryo-EM. Computational tools: SnapGene, ImageJ, AlphaFold3, ChimeraX and cryoSPARC.

Projects / Research

2024 – 2025: Scientific intern/ISTernship, "Reconstitution and cryo-EM structural analysis of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii nucleosomes in vitro", "Development of a luciferase chloroplast gene reporter in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii", "Biochemical and structural investigation of human histones in E. coli", Alicia Michael lab, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), Klosterneuburg
2023 – 2024: Bachelor thesis, “Quantification of lipid sorting during clathrin-mediated endocytosis”, Andre Nadler lab, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), Dresden, Germany

Publications

Lennartz, H.M., da Costa Nunes, S., et al. Quantification of lipid sorting during clathrin-mediated endocytosis. bioRxiv (2025): 2025.03.04.641423

Scholarships / Awards

2025 – 2026:	Stipend by the International Max Planck Research School
2024:	ISTernship Summer Program – scholarship from ISTA and OeAD

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS AND GOALS

I am fascinated by cryo-Electron Tomography (cryo-ET), a technique that allows us to visualize cells in a near-native state, facilitating our understanding of the cell composition, spatial organization and architecture at a very high resolution. I believe that this technique is enabling the scientific community to address and discover new, groundbreaking questions in fundamental biology. I want to work and contribute to the growth of the field by developing new methods and applying them to address a biological question.