Dr. Carlos Faro, Principal Investigator

Contact e-mail: cfaro@biocant.pt

Background: Carlos Faro received his PhD in Biochemistry in 1991 at the University of Coimbra and did postdoctoral work at the Oklahoma Medical Resarch Foundation, USA under the supervision of Prof. Jordan Tang. In 1999/2000 he was Visiting Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. Throughout his carrier Carlos Faro supervised 8 PhD and 12 MSc theses, was granted almost 1 ME in research projects and published over 40 full papers in international peer-reviewed journals.
In 2004 he was the head of X-PROT, a collaborative initiative between academy and industry that was given the European Regional Innovation Award by the European Commission. More recently he was responsible for setting out Biocant Park, the first Portuguese Biotecnology Park. Carlos Faro is associate professor of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Coimbra, and Founder Director of Biocant.

Selected publications:

1. Simões, I., Faro, R., Bur, D. and Faro, C. (2007) Characterization of recombinant CDR1, an Arabidopsis aspartic proteinase involved in disease resistance. J. Biol. Chem.282: 31358-65.
2. Cortes, L., Carvalho, AL., Todo-Bom, A., Faro, C., Pires, E. and Veríssimo, P. (2006) Purification of a novel aminopeptidase from the pollen of Parietaria judaica that alters epithelial integrity and degrades neuropeptides. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 118: 878-84.
3. Samyn B, Sergeant K, Castanheira P, Faro C, Van Beeumen J. (2005) A new method for C-terminal sequence analysis in the proteomic era. Nature Methods. 2:193-200.
4. Castanheira P, Samyn B, Sergeant K, Clemente JC, Dunn BM, Pires E, Van Beeumen J, Faro C. (2005) Activation, proteolytic processing, and peptide specificity of recombinant cardosin A. J Biol Chem. 280:13047-54.
5. Simoes I, Faro C.(2004) Structure and function of plant aspartic proteinases. FEBS J. 271:2067-75.