Last March 15, at the Judicial Police headquarters, in Lisbon, three former MSc students supervised by Helena Gaspar, principal investigator at the Chemistry from Biological Systems research group and head of BioISI Mass Spectrometry Facility, were admitted as experts into the Portuguese Scientific police.

Raquel Ferro, Sara Júlio and Cláudio Leal are the names of three of the thirty new experts admitted to the Judicial Police and will work in the Scientific Police’s Laboratory. These three young professionals have a thing in common: they were supervised by Helena Gaspar in their MSc. thesis and one thing is for sure: the work developed with the BioISI researcher have been of paramount importance in their careers and have strongly influenced the step they are taking now.

Watch the videos below (PT only; EN version in figure’s caption)  to understand how important working with Helena Gaspar was within their professional path.

Cláudio Leal’s testimonial: “The work developed during my master’s thesis with Dr. Helena Gaspar allowed me to acquire knowledge in the area of Forensic Chemistry and develop skills to take office today as a specialist of the scientific police.“

Raquel Ferro’s testimonial: “Working with Dr. Helena Gaspar allowed me not only to acquire the skills to be here today, but also to realize that this is where I wanted to be as a specialist in the scientific police.“

Sara Júlio’s testimonial: “Having completed my master’s thesis allowed me to acquire essential working methods and understand even better the problem of the fight against drugs and today to be here at my ceremony of acceptance of the appointment as a specialist of scientific police of the judicial police.“

These three young scientists are part of the first scientific police experts’ course, that took place between November 22 and March 5, designed to be a tool to improve the Portuguese Judicial Police’s response towards criminal investigation. By now, a second course has already started (in March) and 57 new candidates are being trained to become the Scientific Police experts.

From left to right | Sara Júlio, Cláudio Leal, Helena Gaspar and Raquel Ferro

Find out more about the CBS group here and know more about BioISI Mass Spec facility here.