Joana Caldeira is CEO and co-founder of Fetalix, which provides the first regenerative fetal-inspired biomaterial to treat back pain. She holds a PhD in Biomedicine and is also an Assistant researcher at i3S. In 2017, she managed to define age-related matrix signatures of healthy intervertebral discs. Her work led to several other collaborations in the field of the disc and heart regeneration.

Joana has secured funding from national and international agencies including EUROSPINE, AOSpine and ON Foundation, and has been honored with the L’Oréal Medal of Honor for Women in Science 2018. In 2023, she has been supported by Women TechEU from the European Commission and this year by EIC Pre-Accelerator, having been recognized with the CaixaImpulse.

She is passionate about science communication and regularly promotes lectures, events, and projects with younger generations to raise awareness and inspire future researchers.