About Me
Me
My name is Pedro Jorge Pereira Lopes, I was born at the October 13th, 1985. My hometown is Viseu, however I am studying in Aveiro since 2003.
Currently, I have completed my MSc in Computers and Telematics Engineering in 2008 and I am currently doing my PhD in computer science at the University of Aveiro Bioinformatics research group.
I have always wanted to work on computer science, although, I never wanted to be a simple programmer. Therefore, when the opportunity to work with biology arised, I could not say no!
UA.PT Bioinformatics
The bioinformatics research groupd joins people from several research areas, namely molecular biology, biochemistry, statistics, computing and information systems. The group, funded mainly by several National and European projects, has been gathering experience on different bioinformatics methodologies and it is one of the few Portuguese groups doing research on this field.
The study is focused on algorithmic questions and computational solutions inspired by and related to biological and biomedical problems. Furthermore, they design, develop and assess software tools for the exploration of genomic data, in a close collaboration with biologists to study the usefulness in practice of the developed methods. Additionally, there is an interest on biomedicine, namely on how the genomic findings can be used to provide a deeper knowledge and a better treatment for human diseases
GEN2PHEN
The Genotype to Phenotype: A Holistic Solution is an european projec that aims to unify human and model organism genetic variation databases towards increasingly holistic views into Genotype-To-Phenotype (G2P) data, and to link this system into other biomedical knowledge sources via genome browser features.
My PhD and the my ongoing research projects are related to and funded by this project.
IEETA
The Institue of Electronic and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro is a research institue directly related with the University of Aveiro. It is supported by about 100 researchers, ranging from students to teachers.
Research is mostly directed to information systems in biology, e-health, digital libraries and robotics.
University of Aveiro
UA is one of the best portuguese public universities. Specially focused on engineering courses, it offers great diversity in undergradutes and graduate courses. Research plays a key role in the university development, defining it as a modern university with strong links to several scientific research areas like electronics, computer science, biology, chemistry, physics or mechanics.
I have joined it in 2003, joined the Computers and Telematics Engineering course. In 2008 I have finished my MSc and started a PhD involved a recend doctorate program.
Hobbies
There is lots of stuff I like to do when I am not focused on any work or research. I love movies. Not only going to cinemas but the entire movie industry and stories that surround it. Empire is definitely a must read magazine on this subject.
I also like to read graphic novels, not traditional comics or manga, I like more modern styles. Watchmen, Singularity 7 or Scott Pilgrim are on top of my preferences. I like to listen to music, specially on the radio and sometimes I read... Not as much as I like, but sci-fi books are my favourite.
And like any other guy in my age I watch a few TV Shows regularly like Heroes, Dollhouse, Fringe, Dexter or Burn Notice.