Mónica Bettencourt-Dias

Areas of Specialization: Molecular Biology
Monica Bettencourt-Dias is the Director of Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência. A biochemist and cellular biologist, she is also the head of the Cell Cycle Regulation research group. She earned her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Lisbon, and graduated from University College London with a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology. She split her postdoctoral time between the University of Cambridge and Birkbeck, University of London, where she researched kinases and scientific communication. She earned a Diploma in Science Communication from Birkbeck College in 2004, which arose from her work on improving how scientists communicate with the public.

Her laboratory work has focused on complex subcellular structure and how they change during disease, development, and evolution, using complex cytoskeletal assemblies for study. For her research efforts, Bettencourt-Dias has won numerous awards, including the Eppendorf Young European Investigator Award, the Pfizer Award for Basic Research, and the Keith Porter Prize from the American Society for Cell Biology.

She was named a European Molecular Biology Organization Young Investigator Fellow in 2009 and became a full member of that organization in 2015.

Bettencourt-Dias current research projects include studies of spatial control of centriole biogenesis, causes, and consequences of centriole deregulation in cancer, the evolution of microtubule-organizing centers, and mechanisms of cilia diversification.

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