Rita Fior is a Developmental Biologist, fascinated by how cells interact with each other, to deliver instructions, to collaborate, to compete or synchronize their actions. By the end of her Post–Doc, she became interested in cancer. This change in her scientific interest started with the awareness that there are several equivalent chemotherapy options, but no available test to determine the best therapy for each individual patient.

With this goal, Fior developed and optimized the zAvatar model for personalized medicine and is now a leading expert in the field. Her work has had major coverage from the scientific community (Science Leslie 2017, Fazio & Zon, 2017) and social media (National Geographic, Independent etc…) and is now considered a milestone in the field, as highlighted in a recent Nature Rev in Cancer (Fazio et al 2020) and Nature Rev in Drug Discovery. Building on the zAvatar-test outstanding predictive value, Fior is spearheading a randomized clinical trial. The ultimate goal is to provide patients and clinicians with a valuable tool for directing treatments.

In parallel, the Lab is investigating the cellular and molecular interactions that occur between human tumor cells and zebrafish innate immunity to discover new mechanisms of innate immune evasion (Póvoa et al 2021, Nature Comm).

Her work is being recognized since her PhD with several prizes and honorable mentions such as Genetics of The Year (Genetics Society), BioMED Central Research award, Crioestaminal and BIAL Clinical Medicine and Cancer Research Institute-CRI Impact Award 2023.

Rita has also extensive experience in teaching in several Master and PhD programs and was author and co-editor of a textbook in Molecular and Cell Biology of Cancer, Springer (Fior and Zilhão, 2019).