People

Adriana Oliveira Dos Santos

Research Interests

Adriana’s research interests are focused in two domains: 1) Brain drug delivery through the nasal route and 2) the control of cell growth (cell cycle regulation and apoptosis).
The first research interest is being developed in collaboration with Gilberto Alves (CICS-UBI). Drugs can distribute directly to the brain through the olfactory and trigeminal nerves. This offers the possibility to achieve therapeutic drug concentrations in the brain with reduced systemic or hepatic burden compared with the oral route. Adriana is interested in understanding how formulation factors can enhance permeation, how brain targeting through this route can be maximized, and how delivery nanosystems can be successfully developed. She is also interested in in vitro/ex vivo models to address these questions.
The other research focus relates with Adriana’s experience with in vitro biological evaluation of cytotoxicity, cell cycle and apoptosis in cancer cells. She currently collaborates with researchers of CICS-UBI (Samuel Silvestre, Paulo Almeida) and others in the biological evaluation of novel anticancer drugs candidates. She is particularly interested in her future work to be able to address RalGPS2 function and signaling network in the regulation of cells proliferation, differentiation and resistance to apoptosis in cancer cells and neural progenitor cells.

Research Group