Morena Francesca Fiordalisi

Co-Founder and CTO (FETALDISC, LDA) and Collaborating Junior Researcher (i3S) | Porto, Portugal

Morena Fiordalisi holds a Bachelor Degree in Biotechnology (Università della Calabria, Italy) and a Master Degree in Medical Biotechnology (Università dell’Aquila, Italy). After her graduation, she joined the Microenvironments for New Therapies group at i3S, firstly as an Erasmus student and after as PhD student. In 2023, she received her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology Applied to Health Sciences from Abel Salazar Biomedical Sciences Institute - University of Porto (ICBAS, Porto, Portugal). Her research work focused on disclosing the impact of matrix donor age on intervertebral disc regeneration. Morena is particularly interested in developing natural-inspired biomaterials, to support intervertebral disc regeneration, therefore leading to a reduction of Low Back Pain. Her work resulted in the submission of a patent (WO2021118379A1), as well as in the publication of 3 papers in international peer-reviewed journals with an h-index=4 and 46 citations. Moreover, she is one of the Co-Founder and CTO of FetalDisc Lda, a Portuguese startup which provide the first regenerative fetal-inspired biomaterial to treat Low Back Pain. Morena was recognized with several awards, including the Best Poster Presentation at EORS 2023 conference (2023), an Education Scholarship from ON/EORS Foundation (2021), the EIT Jumpstarter (2020), and a travel grant from FEBS (2019). Currently, she is working as entrepreneur at FetalDisc, Lda and Collaborating Junior Researcher at i3S (Biofabrication Group, Porto, Portugal).