Sara Ricardo completed the PhD degree in molecular pathology and genetics in 2011/09/08 by Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar. She has a solid background in the pathology field, working in the diagnostic pathology lab of Ipatimup for the first 10 years of her career. During this time, she developed the Msc and PhD degree as a researcher in the Breast Pathology field. After completion the PhD degree, she started working as a post-doc researcher in the Differentiation and Cancer group at i3s/ipatimup and shifted from breast to ovary cancer research, maintaining the scientific area in the gynaecological oncology field.

The major significant reseach outputs in ovarian cancer research are: (1) Defenition of glyco-mucin profiles with higher specificity level than CA125 assay (DOI:10.1016/j.molonc.2014.10.005); (2) First design of a MUC16 TR vaccine construct and production of a MUC16 mAb (DOI: 10.1093/glycob/cwv056); (3) Mucin and truncated O-glycan footprint of the majoraty ovarian cancer cell lines of serous origin do not reflect the phenotype of serous ovarian carcinomas (DOI: 10.3390/ijms19072045); (4) Defenition of mesothelin is a key player in peritoneal dissemination (DOI: 10.1038/s41389-020-00246-2); (5) Generation of two high-grade serous carcinoma cell lines, with a double-chemoresistant (Carboplatin and Paclitaxel) phenotype (DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2021.752127).

In 2017, Sara Ricardo started her path as independent researcher but she her trajectory in ovarian research field started in 2012, during her postdoctoral training, setting an important footprint in ovarian cancer molecular pathology, defining, for the first time, a glyco-mucin profile that identifies malignant ovarian tumors with higher specificity than CA125 alone. She is now recognised an expert in molecular pathology of ovarian tumors, participating as evaluator in national and European research projects calls (e.g. ERC grants) and as reviewer of high impact journal (e.g. Nature Communications, Frontiers Oncology, Cancers). Recently she was awarder, as supervisor, two PhD fellowships from FCT (Ref. 2021.05081.BD; Ref. 2020.04720.BD), co-coordinates a FCT project since 2017 (PTDC/MEC-ONC/29503/2017) and is a PI of a research project since 2018 (HOPE, OC Patient donative). She has been involved as supervisor of many graduated/undergraduate students and jury member of several academic thesis/dissertations. Besides her position as a researcher, Sara Ricardo is an assistant professor at IUCS-CESPU, coordinating the Biopathology curricular unit, professor of histology and biomedical investigation, and member the committee of biomedical sciences Bsc and PhD degrees. She integrates a national commission for the assessment and accreditation of higher education courses at A3ES. She has authored or co-authored 33 publications in international peer-reviewed journals (H-index of 19).