Inês Alves graduated in Biochemistry by the University of Aveiro in 2014. Right after finishing her Master studies, IA was awarded with na Albert Renolds Travel Grant from European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes to visit Borsheim’s lab at Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, in Little Rock, USA. Back to Portugal, IA worked at the Human Genomics lab from National Institute of Health Ricardo Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal in some projects related with chromosomal abnormalities. In 2016, IA decided to move to Porto, joining Pinho’s lab at i3S as a Research fellow in a project focused on the role of glycans in inflammatory Bowel disease. In 2018, IA won a FCT individual PhD Fellowship under the supervision of Salomé Pinho with an innovative project on the role of glycans in autoimmunity with the cosupervison of António Marinho (Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto) and Gabriel Rabinovich (Instituto de Biologia y Medicina Experimental, Argentina). During PhD project, IA identified an abnormal exposure of microbial-associated glycans in kidney from lupus nephritis (LN) patients, a new glycobiomarker that predicts the development of chronic kidney disease. Her findings were recognized by Pfizer Award 2021 and with a national Prize in autoimmunity research sponsored by the National Group of autoimmunity studies (NEDAI) and National Society of Internal Medicine (SPMI). During the last years, IA has been trained by different laboratories in order to learn and develop different techniques, acquiring unique skills in the field of GlycoImmunology such as in Mass Spectrometry Imaging (with Manfred Wuhrer at CPM Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), NL), chemical synthesis (with Javier Rojo Seville,cicCartuja,Spain). IA was awarded with an EMBO Scientific Exchange grant in 2021 in order to develop a novel technique of antigen-specific B cell isolation and culture from SLE patients at Rheumatology lab from LUMC. In 2023 IA was awarded with 2023 Maria de Sousa Prize to identify and characterize the pathogenicity of anti-glycan autoantibodies in autoimmune diseases. IA has been also involved in several international projects, namely as member of the consortium funded by the USA Department of Defense grant (GLYCOME PREDICT), and more recently European-funded projects, such as GlycanTrigger (Horizon Europe) and GlycanSwitch (ERC Synergy). Moreover, IA is currently the Co-PI of 2022 Lupus Innovation Award from Lupus Research Alliance and 2024 ESCI Exploratory Research Grant. At Immunology, Cancer and Glycomedicine group IA was awarded with an FCT-funded CEEC Junior Research position devoted to consolidate her line of research in the group, by studying the role of glycosylation in autoimmunity, using Systemic Lupus Erythematosus as a disease model system.