Manuel Goncalves

Manuel Gonçalves is a molecular biologist focusing on the development and integration of gene delivery and gene editing systems. Dr. Gonçalves received his M.Sc. degree in Plant biotechnology from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. After a post-graduation period in a gene therapy company, he was awarded a fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology to perform his Ph.D. research at the Leiden University on viral vector development. In 2015, Dr. Gonçalves became associate professor at the Department of Cell and Chemical Biology of the Leiden University Medical Center. In this capacity, he supervises a team whose research interests are converting viral vectors into delivery agents of gene-editing tools, studying the impact of epigenetic mechanisms on the performance of different gene-editing tools and strategies, and improving the precision of genome editing based on programmable nucleases or ‘nickases’. In this context, his team has pioneered the investigation of viral vectors as delivery vehicles of TALE- and CRISPR-based nucleases.