Rui began his research career studying Notch target genes in chick embryos at the Instituto de Histologia e Embriologia, University of Lisbon, Portugal. After graduating in 2000, he pursued a PhD in Developmental Biology at the Hubrecht Institute, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. He graduated in 2005, having studied BMP signalling in mouse and zebrafish.

In 2006, Rui joined Professor Roger Patient’s lab at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, to research developmental haematopoiesis. In 2014, he was awarded a BHF Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship and became a Principal Investigator at the Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. There, he began investigating the role of TGFβ signalling in the emergence of blood stem cells during embryonic development. He became a University Research Lecturer in 2016.

Rui joined the University of Birmingham as a Birmingham Fellow in 2018, where he developed his work on zebrafish models of GATA2 deficiency. He became an Associate Professor in 2022 and continues to study GATA2 deficiency alongside the fundamental biology of blood stem-cell development in vertebrates.

Rui is Deputy Section Lead in the Department of Cancer and Genomic Sciences. Since 2026, he has also served as Vice-President of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society.

Zebrafish are a powerful model for biomedical research, enabling the study of human disease and fundamental questions in development and regenerative medicine. Many genes and processes involved in angiogenesis and haematopoiesis are conserved across vertebrates, making zebrafish a valuable system for investigating blood and vascular development and disease.

The Monteiro Lab studies how external signals and internal transcriptional and epigenetic regulators guide cell-fate decisions, including how embryonic endothelial cells acquire a blood stem-cell (HSC) fate. We combine developmental biology with genetic approaches, including CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, transient transgenesis, imaging, and single-cell transcriptional and epigenetic profiling. We also use zebrafish and in vitro cell models to investigate haematological disease.

Current projects

1. Extrinsic signalling in blood stem-cell development
We investigate how signals from a cell’s environment guide the emergence of haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from haemogenic endothelium. A particular focus is Notch signalling and how it interacts with other developmental cues to influence cell fate and blood stem-cell formation.

2. Epigenetic regulation and cis-regulatory elements in cell-fate decisions
We study how epigenetic regulators and cis-regulatory elements, including enhancers, work together to control gene expression and cell fate in endothelial cells and HSCs. By examining these processes in vivo, we aim to understand how they contribute to embryonic blood and vascular development.

3. Models of bone marrow failure and haematological disease
We use zebrafish and in vitro cell models to investigate how genetic changes disrupt blood production and contribute to disorders such as bone marrow failure and leukaemia. This includes our zebrafish model of GATA2 deficiency, in which disease progression is linked to defects in DNA-damage repair pathways.

Previous projects

TGFβ signalling in blood stem-cell and vascular development
Our previous work investigated how TGFβ signalling contributes to the formation of haematopoietic stem cells and blood vessels during embryonic development. This research provided insight into the roles of TGFβ in blood and vascular biology and its potential relevance to haematological and cardiovascular disease.