MCBiology Symposium | PhD 6^th Edition
From InCell to ExCell

6 November 2019

Mariano Gago Auditorium, i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde

Science started as a mere exercise of curiosity where the will to unravel the secrets of life leads to an accumulation of knowledge. Nowadays, with the fast evolution of technology, a different view of Science seems to exist: an overly specific interpretation of data obtained by very complex techniques that frequently focus on very small details. Nevertheless, this allows new possibilities to emerge every day in all scientific fields, paving the way for a much needed multidisciplinary approach.
Cell biology has been a scientific focus for a long time, as the cell is the structural unit of every living organism. By studying cell behaviour/functionality and relating it with higher levels of reality, we are able to create a more detailed picture of biological processes and a better understanding of the limits of life itself. Furthermore, with the new approaches to biological problems, new questions and new ways of thinking are arising.
With this year’s edition of the Annual Symposium, the students of the MCBiology Ph.D. Programme intend to join leading experts and students from completely different areas of research in life sciences in a one-day event where we will explore how data from molecular and cellular biology might be integrated in a multidisciplinary approach to give rise to new scientific questions. The 4^th Annual MCBiology Symposium “From InCell to ExCell” will take place at i3S - Institute for Innovation and Health Research) on November 6th. Our programme will promote the proper environment to stimulate the exchange of experiences and healthy discussion between young scientists and leading experts, among different areas of biological sciences. Please, register in the symposium until 15 October.

The meeting will be held at Mariano Gago Auditorium, i3S – Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde

Rua Alfredo Allen, 208; 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
Tel: +351 220 408 800
Site: http://www.i3s.up.pt/ | E-mail: events@i3s.up.pt
GPS coordinates: 41º 10’ 30.008’’ N, 8º 36’ 12.488’’ W.

Organizing Committee:

Ana Catarina Martins | Ana Cláudia Leite | Ana Isabel Lopes | Ana Pinto | Ana Sofia Silva | João Amorim | Jorge Ferreira | Luis Granadeiro | Maria Camila Ribeiro | Nelson Leça | Ruben Pinheiro | Sara Sousa | Telma Martins

The MCBiology PhD Program - organized by ICBAS (Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar), FCUP (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto) and IBMC (Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology) - provides advanced practical and theoretical training in Molecular and Cellular Biology field.

The program provides the necessary tools for the students to excel either in academia, or industry. The sixth edition is focused on the hallmarks of molecular and cellular biology to stimulate progress and multidisciplinarity in life sciences discoveries. The MCBiology PhD. Program - organized by ICBAS (Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar), FCUP (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto) and IBMC (Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology) - provides advanced practical and theoretical training in Molecular and Cellular Biology field.
The program provides the necessary tools for the students to excel either in academia, or industry. The sixth edition is focused on the hallmarks of molecular and cellular biology to stimulate progress and multidisciplinarity in life sciences discoveries.

* Currently Western European Time (WET), UTC +0)

9.00-9.15h | Welcome Session
Chair: Professor Cláudio Sunkel & Pedro Duque

9.15-10.50h | SESSION I 
Chair: Diogo Silvério & Filipa Dias

9.15h Sónia Henriques (Cell Activation & Gene Expression)
Dissecting the multiprotein complex behind CD6-mediated inhibition of T cell activation

9.30h Marcos Cardoso (Cell Activation & Gene Expression)
SRCR proteins as microorganism pattern recognition receptors

9.45h Carolina Barroso (Iron & Innate Immunity)
TBA

10.00h | INVITED SPEAKER
Professor Nicholas Proudfoot | University of Oxford, United Kingdom
R-loops, dangerous or valuable biproducts of gene transcription?

10.50h | Coffee Break

11.30-12.50h | SESSION II 
Chair: Ana Catarina Costa & Filipa Terceiro

11.30h Camila Oliveira (Glial Cell Biology)
Cdc25 phosphatases modulate tau toxicity in vivo

11.45h José Leite (Bioengineering & Synthetic Microbiology)
Insights on the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s Aβ1-40 peptide amyloid formation and clearance by neprilysin

12.00h | INVITED SPEAKER
Henrique Veiga Fernandes | Champalimaud Center for the Unknown, Portugal
Neuronal regulation of immune fitness

12.50| Lunch 

14.45-17.30h | SESSION III 
Chair: Cátia Carvalho & Vanessa Teixeira

14.00h | INVITED SPEAKER 
Lukas Kapitein | Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Expanding our understanding of the neuronal transport

15.00h Monika Vilares (Ageing and Aneuploidy)
Small-molecule inhibition of aging-associated chromosomal instability delays cellular senescence

15.15h Joana Teixeira (Vertebrate Development and Regeneration)
Uncovering the tumorigenic potential of genes targeted by pancreatic non-coding risk alleles

15.30h Marco Cruz (Chromosome Instability & Dynamics)
TBA

15.45-16.30h | POSTER SESSION

16.30h | KEYNOTE LECTURE 
Chair: Ana Isabel Silva

David Marçal | Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal
Taking Science Communication Seriously

17.30h | Awards and Closing Session
Chair: Professor Paula Tamagnini & Teresa Leão

Nicholas Proudfoot

Nicholas Proudfoot is a renowned molecular biologist who has made significant contributions to the field of mRNA processing in eukaryotes. He started his scientific career in 1973 at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), University of Cambridge, where he discovered the AAUAAA poly(A) signal as a graduate student. As a postdoctoral fellow, he studied the globin gene families, first at the LMB and then with Tom Maniatis at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Proudfoot started his lab in 1981 at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, as a Lecturer and then Professor. He was also a Fellow and Tutor in Biochemistry at Brasenose College. He has been an EMBO member since 1982 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005. His research group studies the transcriptional termination in eukaryotes, focusing on the molecular mechanisms of RNA polymerase II termination.

Patrick Heun

Patrick Heun is a senior researcher at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology and the University of Edinburgh. His group is studying the epigenetic inheritance and organization of centromeres using cultured Drosophila and human cells as a model. This involves a general tool of molecular biology combined with biochemistry and microscopy. Patrick Heun obtained his PhD at the University of Lausanne in the laboratory of Susan Gasser. In 2001, he moved to the Salk Institute, San Diego followed by the Lawrence Berkeley National labs as a postdoc fellow with Gary Karpen. In 2005, he started his own lab as a junior group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany. Since 2014, he has been at the University of Edinburgh as a Wellcome Senior Research Fellow. His lab is interested in chromosome organisation, with a particular focus on the organisation, establishment and maintenance of centromeres. Epigenetic transmission of centromere identity through many cell generations is required for proper centromere function and when perturbed can lead to genome instability and cellular malfunction. Drosophila and human tissue culture cells are used as model organisms to address the question, how centromere identity is propagated, what role transcription at the centromere plays for centromere function and how the centromeric chromatin fiber is organised.

Megan Carey

Megan R. Carey is a Group Leader in the Neuroscience Program at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal. She received her PhD in 2005 from the University of California, San Francisco, where her thesis was awarded UCSF’s Krevans Distinguished Dissertation Award. After a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Dr Carey started her independent laboratory at the Champalimaud. Her lab combines quantitative behavioural analysis, genetics, and physiology to understand how the brain controls learned and coordinated movements. Dr Carey was an International Early Career Scientist of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 2012-2017 and received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council in 2015. She is a member of eLife‘s Board of Reviewing Editors and is a Scholar, and the current Chair, of the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence. Dr Carey has co-chaired a number of international scientific conferences, including the Gordon Research Conference on the Cerebellum (Maine, USA), COSYNE (Computational and Systems Neuroscience, Utah, USA), and the Forum of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS: Copenhagen, 2016; Berlin, 2018). Dr Carey has served as a policy adviser to the European Commission as a member of the RISE (Research, Innovation, and Science Experts) high-level group since 2015.

Cord Brakebusch

Cord Brakebusch studied Biochemistry in Hannover, Germany, and performed his PhD work at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot Israel with David Wallach. Following postdocs at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, with Axel Ullrich, and at Lunds University, Sweden, with Reinhard Fässler, he became 2002 independent research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried. Since 2006 he is a professor at the University of Copenhagen, PI at the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre (BRIC), and Scientific Head of the Transgenic Mouse Core Facility of the University of Copenhagen. The research focus of the Brakebusch group is the in vivo function of Rho GTPases, which are crucial regulators of the actin cytoskeleton, but also involved in many other signalling pathways. Rho GTPase function is studied by generating and analyzing mice with mutations in genes encoding Rho GTPase or Rho GTPase effectors. More recently, the nuclear Rho GTPase signalling became a major research interest of the group.

Registration is free but mandatory. Registration includes coffee breaks and lunch.

Registration deadline: 15 October 2019

More information:mcbiology2019@gmail.com