© Katrin Boes / MPI-CBG
Since November, the MPI-CBG faculty has a new research group for “Mechanisms of translational control during embryogenesis,” led by cell and molecular biologist Madalena Reimão Pinto. In Dresden, Madalena will focus on RNA biology in the context of development. Her group will investigate the mechanisms regulating mRNA translation as cell fates become specified during early zebrafish embryogenesis.
“I really felt the energy of the MPI-CBG right away and knew when I entered the building that there's just a different vibe here,” says Madalena Reimão Pinto. “I am looking forward to working with many different colleagues at the MPI-CBG and on the Dresden campus. For example, the close link to the Center for Systems Biology Dresden (CSBD) and their expert mathematicians enables me to start thinking of questions that I just didn't even dare to think of before.”
Madalena Reimão Pinto studied Cell and Molecular Biology at the New University of Lisbon and then undertook her MSc studies in Human Molecular Genetics at Imperial College London. Afterwards, she worked as a technician at the University of Lisbon for 1.5 years and for 6 months at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge, UK. For her PhD, Madalena moved to Vienna to the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA). In 2019, she started her postdoc at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. In 2019, she received an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship, in 2021 a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, and in 2024, a research fund for excellent junior researchers from the University of Basel. As of November 2025, Madalena is a research group leader at MPI-CBG.