Bio:
Rodrigo Costa is an Associate Professor (since 2020) at the Department of Bioengineering (DBE) of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon. He graduated in Biological Sciences at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1998 and obtained his M.Sc. degree in Ecology from this same University in 2001. He acquired his Ph.D. degree in Life Sciences from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, in 2006, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, from 2006 to 2008.
His research addresses the diversity and function of microorganisms in natural and fabricated biomes - with emphasis on Eukaryote-Prokaryote symbioses studied with metagenomics approaches -, their implications to host/ecosystem health and climate regulation, and potential use as renewable sources of innovative biotechnological appliances. Current research projects focus on harnessing the metabolism of bacterial symbionts of marine organisms and developing microbiome engineering approaches to (i) suppress microbial diseases and mitigate climate change stressors in aquaculture and coral reef ecosystems, and (ii) design marine-based bioproducts of application across multiple sectors (e.g., health, environment, food, and feed) to leverage the circular blue bioeconomy. Prof. Costa belongs to the group of fifteen specialists invited by the Portuguese Government in 2023 to propose a package of legislative, financial, and scientific competitive measures for the development of the Blue Biotechnology Sector in Portugal.