Professor Ana Rita Figueiras has obtained her Ph.D degree from the University of Coimbra, and is Researcher and Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy in this institution. Actually, Ana Figueiras is scientific member of REQUIMTE/LAQV. Her research areas are polymeric micelles, cyclodextrins and mucoadhesive polymers in drug delivery. During her Ph.D. thesis she acquired experience in drug permeability,cellular viability and cytotoxicity studies, mucoadhesive biomaterials, therapeutic applications of cyclodextrins and computational studies in drug design. She also developed research work during her PhD thesis in the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) by coorientation of Professor Juan Torres-Labandeira and in the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Institute of Pharmacy and Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Austria by co-orientation of Professor Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch. Now, her objective is to combine know-how development during her Ph.D thesis and new strategies for successful drug delivery, especially in what concerns the use of block copolymers and micellar systems. She has numerous scientific publications inprestigious journals, several book chapters and various communications in international conferences.

Polymeric micelles, cyclodextrins, micelleplexes, controlled release