Venue

The symposium will be held at i3S – Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde.
Rua Alfredo Allen, 208; 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
Tel: +351 226 074 900 | E-mail: events@i3s.up.pt
GPS coordinates: 41º 10’ 30.008’’ N, 8º 36’ 12.488’’ W.

Organization

Organizing Committee
Bárbara Rego e Pires
Eduardo Veríssimo Sousa
Guilherme Faria Nadaline
Inês Catarina Garcia Ribeiro
João Pedro Oliveira Neves
Marco Pires da Silva
Óscar Manuel Ferreira Fonseca
Thales Viana Labourdette Costa

Scientific Committee
i3S Postdoc Researchers

Program

Day 1 | 20th February

13h00 - 13h30 Registration

13h30 - 14h00 Opening session
Claudio Sunkel

14h00 - 15h00 Keynote Speaker | Olivier Neyrolles: Host-Pathogen Interactions in Tuberculosis

15h00 - 16h15 Students’ presentations
Filipa Dias | Impact of Leishmania infection on chemotaxis
André Carvalho | Identification of conserved mechanisms that regulate cortex remodelling during epithelial cell division
Inês Castro-Almeida | AHR on T(AHR)get: Dissecting the Impact of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Modulation in Disease and Therapy

16h15 - 16h45 Coffee break

16h45 - 17h15 Sponsor talk | Brinter

17h15 - 18h30 Round table | Towards a sustainable future for researchers in Portugal
  Bruno Pereira, President of ANICT (Associação Nacional de Investigadores em Ciência e Tecnologia)
  Claudio Sunkel, Director of i3S
  Paula Perez, Head of the Career Development Unit, i3S
  Pedro Resende, Director of Chaperone
  Sofia Lisboa, President of ABIC (Associação dos Bolseiros de Investigação Científica)

18h30 Closure

Day 2 | 21^st February

10h00 - 11h15 Students’ presentations
      Carlos Sousa-Soares | The transcription factor FOXM1 reverts age-related epigenetic erosion by enhancing DNA repair
      Sofia Figueiredo | Abnormal RNA Aggregates Sequester RNA-binding Proteins and Iron in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 37 (SCA37)
      Bruno Ribeiro | Harnessing photosynthetic electrons: using the cyanobacterium Synechocystis as a microbial cell factory

11h20 - 11h40 Coffee break

11h45 - 11h55 Sponsor talk | BGI Tech Solutions Hongkong Co Ltd

12h00 - 13h00 Keynote Speaker | Carmen Ruiz de Almodóvar: Neuro-glia-vascular interactions in the central nervous system

13h00 - 14h15 Lunch time (not provided)

14h15 - 15h15 Keynote Speaker | Ana Luísa Correia: Immune regulation of cancer dormancy one site at a time

15h15 - 16h30 Poster session

16h30 - 17h45 Students’ presentations
      Cátia Ramos | Glycosylated extracellular vesicles as key players in tumor-adipocyte crosstalk
      Nelson Leça | Proximity-based activation of AURORA A by MPS1 potentiates error correction
      Beatriz Moreira | Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor in melanoma: from a sensor to a regulator of the tumor microenvironment

17h45 - 18h00 Awards and closing remarks
Paula Tamagnini

18h00 Chill out

Speakers

Olivier Neyrolles, Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology (IPBS), University of Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France

Dr. Olivier Neyrolles completed his PhD in Microbiology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (1994-1997), where he investigated virulence mechanisms in Mycoplasma species. He then joined Imperial College London (1997-2000) as a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Douglas B. Young's lab, focusing on intracellular trafficking and antigen presentation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis-infected macrophages. Returning to France, Dr. Neyrolles advanced his specialization in innate immunity and mycobacterial virulence at the Pasteur Institute under Prof. Brigitte Gicquel. He then transitioned into a CNRS Research Associate (2004), earning the Berthe Péan Award from the French Academy of Sciences (2004). He established his lab at the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology (IPBS) in Toulouse, where he now serves as CNRS Research Director. His work now focuses on uncovering mechanisms of immune evasion and novel therapeutic strategies for tuberculosis and other respiratory infections. Recognized as an FRM (Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale) team, his lab has received awards such as CNRS Bronze Medal (2009) and, more recently, the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation “Coups d’élan pour la Recherche Française” Prize and the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award, cementing its reputation as a leader in the field.

Carmen Ruiz de Almodóvar, Institute for Neurovascular Cell Biology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

Carmen Ruiz de Almodóvar is a distinguished scientist specializing in neurovascular cell biology. She earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine at the CSIC in Granada, Spain, in 2004. Following her doctorate, she pursued postdoctoral research at the Vesalius Research Center, VIB-KU Leuven in Belgium, where she focused on neurobiology and angiogenesis. In 2011, she became a Junior Group Leader at the Biochemistry Center (BZH) at Heidelberg University. She currently holds a position at the University of Bonn, where she serves as the Chair of the newly established Institute for Neurovascular Cell Biology at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on understanding the properties of the vasculature within the central nervous system (CNS). Her work aims to uncover how blood vessels grow into different CNS areas, how CNS-specific vascular properties are specified and maintained, and how these processes are altered in disease conditions.

Ana Luísa Correia, Champalimaud Research, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal

Ana Luísa Correia is an expert in dormancy and immunity and her research group at Champalimaud Foundation is dedicated to studying how the interplay between resident immune cells in metastatic niches and metastatic cancer cells as these enter, sustain and exit from a state of proliferative quiescence. Ana Luísa joined the distinguished GABBA PhD program in the University of Porto and during her doctoral studies she ventured to the laboratory of Mina Bisell in Berkeley. There, Ana Luísa made pivotal discoveries in the field of breast cancer cell invasion, demonstrating how matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) display alternative mechanisms (in addition to their catalytic activity) that facilitate breast cancer cell invasion and pose a challenge for the action of drugs targeting MMPs. Subsequently, she would join the laboratory of Mohamed Bentires-Alj in the University of Basel in 2014, where her research interests turned to tissue-specific determinants of metastasis. Her work during this period led to the discovery of hepatic NK cells as critical determinants of metastatic dormancy via IFN-gamma secretion as well as the production of CXCL12 by hepatic stellate cells as a contributor to metastatic outbreak due to its capacity to induce NK cell quiescence. In 2021, Ana Luísa established the Cancer Dormancy and Immunity Laboratory at the Champalimaud, wherein her team is currently dedicated to unravelling how the immune system can be harnessed to sustain dormancy in order to develop novel approaches to prevent the appearance of full-blown metastatic tumors.

Round Table Participants

Bruno Pereira, President of ANICT (Associação Nacional de Investigadores em Ciência e Tecnologia)

Bruno Pereira is an Associate Researcher and project PI at i3S in the Differentiation and Cancer group, working on RNA-level regulation in colorectal cancer development and therapy response, using mouse models and patient-derived tumoroids as main study models. He has a degree in Biology (2006) from the Faculty of Sciences, U. Porto, and a PhD in Biomedicine (2013) from the Faculty of Medicine, U. Porto, developed in IPATIMUP and the Institute for Advanced Biosciences (Grenoble, France). In parallel with the scientific activity, he has been a member of ANICT (Associação Nacional de Investigadores em Ciência e Tecnologia) since 2020, a board member since 2021, and the President of the board since 2023. ANICT has been committed to discuss issues concerning science policies and researcher´s career development and, more importantly, propose solutions to the involved stakeholders (Government, Parliament, FCT) to improve them.

Claudio Sunkel, Director of i3S

Professor of Molecular Biology at the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal. He studied Biology and Genetics at the University of Sussex, England, where he obtained a Doctorate in Genetics and later completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College, London, from 1983 to 1987. Since 1992, he has served as a professor at the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Porto, where he currently leads a research group at i3S. His research primarily examines the molecular mechanisms that regulate cell division. He has published over one hundred original articles in international journals and supervised 25 PhD students and over 20 postdoctoral researchers. He was the director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Porto from 2009 to 2019 and has been the director of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health - i3S since 2019. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and served as President of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory board. He collaborates with various national and international funding organisations, including the Austrian Science Fund, Cancer Research UK, the Irish Research Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the Polish Research Foundation, the Swiss Research Foundation, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. He was elected to Academia das Ciências de Lisboa in 2024.

Paula Perez, Head of the Career Development Unit, i3S

Paula López Pérez is the Career Development Unit Coordinator at i3S. She holds a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Minho (Portugal). Paula's research has covered a wide range of fields, including biomaterials development, tissue engineering, molecular biology, and antimicrobial peptides. She has worked in five academic labs and two companies across five countries, gaining valuable insight into the challenges researchers face at different career stages and in diverse institutional and cultural settings. Paula's natural ability to build and nurture human relationships, combined with her extensive experience in diverse academic and industrial environments, led her to develop a keen interest in personal and professional development. Now, through her work at i3S, she contributes to fostering supportive research environments, advocating for inclusive academic cultures, and long-term career development strategies that benefit both individuals and the research ecosystem as a whole.

Pedro Resende, Director of Chaperone

Pedro is Co-Founder and Director of Chaperone, a social impact company, with the mission of democratizing access to high-quality career development in science. Chaperone empowered over 5000 scientists from more than 40 countries and delivered more than 800 hours of training. Chaperone is trusted by prestigious institutions such as EMBL, Karolinska Institutet, European Commission Joint Research Centres, Gulbenkian Foundation, and many more. In addition to his role at Chaperone, Pedro is a former Life Sciences Academic Researcher in the field of Stem Cell Biology. He was awarded his PhD with distinction from studies on stem cell niche dynamics, developed at the Salk Institute, San Diego, California. Pedro worked in three countries (Portugal, UK and USA) and experienced different roles in academia, industry and non-profits. Pedro co-founded two professional associations, and one startup, and worked in Policy Advice at Health Parliament Portugal and as External Consultant at the Ministry of Health, Portugal.

Sofia Lisboa, President of ABIC (Associação dos Bolseiros de Investigação Científica)

Sofia Lisboa, president of Associação dos Bolseiros de Investigação Científica, doctoral student and research fellow at Instituto de História Contemporânea, at NOVA FCSH.

Abstract Submission

The call for abstracts will be open until the 24^thof January 2025 (notification of acceptance on the 3^rd of February 2025). Abstract submission is open for McBiology students only.

Abstracts should be structured according to the following template:

Abstract layout >>

Abstract submission form >>