M. Helena Vasconcelos is presently Associate Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences of FFUP (Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto) and Leader of the Cancer Drug Resistance Group at i3S/IPATIMUP. She obtained her first degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from FFUP, Portugal (1991), an MSc in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland (1993) and a PhD from the Department of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen, Scotland (1996). She then moved to Ireland for a post-doctoral position as temporary Researcher at the University of Cork, which was followed by another post-doc position at IPATIMUP. She initiated her teaching career in 1999, while continuing her research career at IPATIMUP and later at i3S.

Helena's research focuses on the identification and validation of biomarkers and therapeutic targets to overcome drug resistance in cancer. She has been focusing on studying Extracellular Vesicles as a source of biomarkers of drug resistance and their role in the intercellular communication between tumour cells and between those cells and the tumour microenvironment. In addition, she studies the activity of approved drugs and novel small molecules to counteract drug resistance mechanisms. Her work has led to the validation of therapeutic targets and the identification of "hit" small molecules.

Helena has been the PI of national research grants and has served as referee of research projects for national and international funding agencies. She has been a member of numerous scientific and organizing committees of national and international Meetings, Conferences and Workshops. She is also an Editor of the journals "Cancers" and "Molecules". Helena has also been a Management Committee Substitute Member of COST Action BM1202 “European Network on Microvesicles and Exosomes in Health and Disease” and was Work Group Leader and Management Committee Member of COST Action CA17104 “New diagnostic and therapeutic tools against multidrug resistance tumors”. She was member of the Team, as Academic Consultant, of a COST Innovators Grant “Pan-European Educational Platform on Multidrug Resistant Tumours and Personalised Cancer Treatment - PANDORA". Helena is a co-coordinator of PNEV - Portuguese Network on Extracellular Vesicles.

She has supervised or co-supervised 9 PhD students who have successfully completed their degree and is currently supervising or co-supervising 8 other PhD students. She has successfully supervised or co-supervised 25 MSc students and is currently co-supervising 1 further MSc student. Helena has also guided 4 hired researchers at post-doctoral level, 7 researchers with post-doctoral grants and has trained numerous young researchers with initiation to research grants (BIs) or technician grants (BTI). She has published more than 125 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and 5 book chapters, having an h-index of 40. Researcher ID: J-9547-2013; ORCID: 0000-0002-7801-4643