Maria Soutilha Conceição completed her Bachelor's degree in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2022 at NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT-Nova), in Lisbon. For her bachelor thesis, she joined the Laboratory of Molecular Mechanisms of Disease led by Helena Vieira at UCBIO-FCT Nova, where she studied carbon monoxide-mediated pro-regenerative microglial phagocytosis. Still at FCT-Nova, Maria successfully completed her Master's in Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine in 2024. She developed her Master’s thesis at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM), supervised by Sérgio Almeida, where she studied aberrant epigenetic regulation of transcription as a source of replication stress in clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

In January 2025, Maria joined the Cancer Dormancy & Immunity Laboratory at the Champalimaud Foundation, where she helps with laboratory organization and supports multiple research projects, while nurturing her own research curiosity for dissecting mechanisms of disseminated tumor cell reactivation.