Marta Figueiredo, PhD, science writer —

Marta holds a biology degree, a master’s in evolutionary and developmental biology, and a PhD in biomedical sciences from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. She was awarded a research scholarship and a PhD scholarship, and her research focused on the role of several signaling pathways in thymus and parathyroid glands embryonic development. She also previously worked as an assistant professor of an annual one-week embryology course at the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Medicine.

Articles by Marta Figueiredo

SpliSense Raises $28.5M to Advance Treatments for Rare CF Mutations

SpliSense has raised $28.5 million in funding to advance its antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) platform for the treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) caused by certain rare mutations, and of other genetic lung diseases. ASOs are molecules designed to target the messenger RNA (mRNA), the intermediate molecule derived from DNA that guides protein production. Money…

Research Examines CF Patients’ Susceptibility to COVID-19

Researchers have developed a patient-derived model of cystic fibrosis (CF) to better understand whether these patients are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection and its associated serious complications. The project is being led by Ruobing “Ruby” Wang, MD, who cares for CF patients in the division of pulmonary medicine…

FDA Expands Labels for 3 Vertex CFTR Modulators

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded the number of cystic fibrosis (CF)-related mutations considered responsive to and therefore eligible for Vertex Pharmaceuticals‘ three approved therapies. With these approvals, the labels will be expanded for Trikafta (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor), Symdeko (tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor), and…