PORTUGAL-MARIA JOSE PEREIRA-BIOTECHNOLOGY

Maria-Jose Pereira from Portugal poses on April 24, 2015 in Paris. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review revealed its annual list of Innovators Under 35 in April 2014. For her work in the fields of biotechnology and medicine, Maria José Pereira, an MIT Portugal Program alumna, has been recognized as an inventor on the list. As an MIT Portugal Program PhD candidate, Pereira contributed to the development of a bio-inspired adhesive that could rapidly attach biodegradable patches inside a beating heart, in the exact place where congenital holes in the heart such as ventricular heart defects present on 6 out of 1,000 births occur. The degradable patches remained attached even at increased heart rate and blood pressure.At the beginning of 2014, Pereira was a lead author on the report of this discovery in Science Translational Medicine. Along with other related platforms, the adhesive technology has been licensed to a startup company, Gecko Biomedical, based in Paris, where Maria José Pereira is currently head of adhesive technologies. AFP PHOTO/JOEL SAGET (Photo credit should read JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)