I am Jorge Carneiro, a theoretical biologist fascinated by biological individuation and organisation of living systems. Studying these, requires breadth rather than specialisation. I have modelled a plethora of biological systems, from molecules to cells to multicellular organisms. The languages of biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics, immunology and evolution as well as those of statistics, mathematics, computer science and engineering, are not completely alien to me, after collaborating and publishing with colleagues across different fields.
I have two pet projects, nowadays. The first is recounting the history of Life on Earth from an organismal perspective to try to answer a simple but pregnant question: how come Life never went extinct in the last ~4x109 years? This project involves a kind of research nomadism, dwelling temporarily in labs with specific expertises. Currently, I am in the Bacterial Development Lab at ITQB NOVA trying to get my head around bacterial spore origin and biology.
The second perhaps more ambitious project is to try to mitigate the conspicuous misalignment between (under)graduate education and the quantitative demands of the biological research and the world we live in. This effort drives me to accept invitations to give courses and lectures in different places, e.g. NOVA University and Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Instituto Serrapilheira in Brazil, and UNAM in Mexico, and to engage in developing new educational programmes, such as the Master's in Integrative and Systems Immunology at Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar in the University of Porto.
This site is a weird blend between academic and personal contents. It is mostly used to share contents via direct links.
Why a round menu instead of the well-established burger? Because it was fun to program and it reads "I am the people I meet, the things I do, the places where I am the people I meet, the things I do ..." and so on. It captures the closure and circularity of life.
You can reach me via [personal name].aka.[family name]@gmail.com or LinkedIn.