Biography
Tiago grew up in Setúbal, Portugal and graduated in pharmaceutical sciences (PharmD) from the University of Lisbon in 2006. He then completed his PhD in medicinal chemistry (2010) under the supervision of Dr Francisca Lopes, where he worked on the computational design, synthesis and profiling of potential anti-plasmodial small molecules acting through cytochrome bc1. Next, he moved to the computer-assisted drug design group led by Prof Gisbert Schneider at the ETH Zürich where he worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a range of collaborative projects – spanning from de novo design and microfluidic-assisted syntheses to machine learning for deorphanization of natural products – with both academia and industry. In late 2015 he returned to Portugal to work as Marie Curie Fellow and senior researcher in the group of Prof Gonçalo Bernardes at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular. There, he co-developed small molecule–ligand conjugates and built machine learning workflows to unveil the modes of action of several high value natural products with anticancer activity. His research resulted in the VC-funded, biotech company TargTex S.A. where he acts as co-founder.
He started his independent career in 2018 and moved in 2019 to the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon to establish the DigiChem Lab. Since 2022 he is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He works on the digitalization of chemical sciences, with special focus on merging computation with experimental chemical biology, organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry and nanotechnology. His ultimate goal is translating science from bench to clinic to improve healthcare.
He has published >75 papers with >20 as senior or co-senior author (h-index 33), delivered >70 presentations at national and international meetings and is inventor in 4 patents (1 granted in the USA and Japan and licensed).
Outside science, Tiago is a tennis addict – having played competitively at national and international levels for >15 years – and a gamer.
Honours & Awards
2023 Medalha Vicente Seabra by the Portuguese Chemical Society
2022 Runner up 2022 EFMC Young Medicinal Chemist or Chemical Biologist in Academia
2021 Invited as Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry New Talent
2021 Invited as RSC Chemical Biology Emerging Investigator
2021 Invited as ChemBioChem ChemBioTalent
2021 Invited as ChemMedChem EuroMedChem Talents
2021 Elected to attend the Young Investigator Workshop EuChemS Division of Chemistry in Life Sciences
2019 “Os Melhores do Portugal Tecnológico” category Software, Exame Informática Magazine
2014 Finalist in SPARK Award for best ETH patent 2014, ETH Zürich
2013 Two best poster prizes, 9th German Conference on Chemoinformatics, Fulda
2010 Bentham Travel Award (ISMC 2010), Bentham Publishers
2007 Sociedade Farmacêutica Lusitana Award, Portuguese Pharmaceutical Association
2006 Merit Award for outstanding academic performance, University of Lisbon
2005 Merit Award for outstanding academic performance, University of Lisbon
2004 Merit Award for outstanding academic performance, University of Lisbon
Professional Activity
2023–present Full member at the Acceleration Consortium, University of Toronto
2023–present Editor at Results in Chemistry
2023–present Early Career Board at Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
2022–present Mercator Fellow at Molecular Machine Learning Priority Program (SPP2363) at DFG
2022–present Assistant Professor at Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon
2020–present Group leader at Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon
2019–present Co-founder of TargTex S.A.
2019–2020 Junior Group Leader at Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
2015–2020 Visiting Assistant Professor at Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon
2015–2019 Visiting Scientist at University of Cambridge, UK
2015–2019 Senior Scientist at Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal
2012–2015 Lecturer at ETH Zürich (D-CHAB, IPW)
2011–2015 Postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich (D-CHAB, IPW)
2005–2009 Instructor at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon