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Cristiano Mota is Assistant Researcher (CEEC 2022) at the Macromolecular Crystallography Lab of UCIBIO, NOVA School of Science and Technology. He graduated in Biochemistry in 2006 at Faculdade de Ciências – Universidade de Lisboa and holds a PhD since 2011 in Biochemistry by NOVA University Lisbon. His PhD research focused on the study of Mo and W enzymes using steady-state kinetics and EPR spectroscopy. In 2012, he took a 5 years BEST fellowship from FCT Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia to work at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) in Grenoble (France) in the framework of the agreement between FCT and the Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB). He had the opportunity to learn crystallography and work as Local Contact in the Structural Biology beamlines at the ESRF, providing technical support and scientific advisory to academic and industrial Synchrotron users. In 2017, he obtained a Postdoctoral fellowship at the Macromolecular Crystallography group (headed by Maria João Romão) at UCIBIO, to work in molybdoenzymes (aldehyde oxidases and formate dehydrogenases) and their enzymatic mechanisms. Since Dec. 2018, he is a Researcher at UCIBIO, he is leading the exploratory project PHA4FUTURE (Structural and biochemical characterization of PHA synthases towards novel Polyhydroxyalkanoates) and team member of the following projects: Reduction of CO2 for sustainable biofuel production; Human aldehyde oxidases and its role in drug metabolism and biocatalysis; A multidisciplinary approach to study Chlamydia trachomatis inclusion membrane (Inc) proteins.

Title of talk: Understanding the Oxygen Tolerance of a W-Formate Dehydrogenase