Paula da Fonseca graduated in Biochemistry at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal, and completed her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of London, UK, based at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Later, she held postdoctoral positions at the Imperial College School of Medicine and at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. In 2013, Paula moved to Cambridge, UK, to establish her own research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. In April 2020, she relocated her group to the School of Molecular Biosciences, at the University of Glasgow, as Professor of Cryo-Electron Microscopy. Paula has specialized in studying regulatory protein complexes primarily using electron microscopy-based techniques. Her current research focuses on the structure and function of eukaryotic proteasome complexes, with particular emphasis on understanding the various human proteasome variants. Paula is also exploring the application of high-resolution cryo-EM in drug development. Her work has been instrumental in validating the Plasmodium proteasome as a potential target for antimalarial drugs and to provide direct insights for structure-based drug development of improved to design Plasmodium proteasome inhibitors with enhanced specificity and potency.