i3S students awarded Fulbright Scholarships
PhD students Joana Maria Pereira, Maria Miguel Castro, Sofia Dias and Paulo Faria - who are carrying out their research at the i3S - recently received a Fulbright Research Grant with the support of FCT, the grant will allow them to develop part of their PhD in the United States in top laboratories in the areas of infection, metastatic breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and nanovaccines.
As part of her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology, at ICBAS, and under the scientific guidance of researcher Sandra Sousa, leader of the i3S group “Cell Biology of Bacterial Infections”, Joana Maria Pereira intends to unravel the mechanisms of repair of the plasmatic membrane of cells in response to the damage caused by Streptococcus pneumonia, the bacterium responsible for the greatest number of cases of pneumonia worldwide, especially in children and the elderly.
In an advanced stage of the infection, this bacterium releases large amounts of a toxin called pneumolysin that causes cell death and allows the infection to spread throughout the body. However, in the early stages of the infection, pneumolysin is released in reduced amounts and cells are able to activate plasma membrane repair mechanisms that allow their survival and stops the spread of bacteria throughout the body. “During my PhD, I discovered that, in response to low levels of pneumolysin, cells ‘recruit’ specific proteins to repair the damage”, explains Joana Maria Pereira.
In collaboration with researcher John Leong, from Tufts University, in Boston, the student will have the opportunity to validate her results “using complex infection models that include different bacterial strains expressing or not pneumolysin and cells in the air-liquid interface that mimic all the complexity of the pulmonary epithelium”. This collaboration, adds Joana Maria Pereira, “will allow me to fulfill all the objectives of my doctoral work and will be essential to validate the plasma membrane repair mechanisms described so far in an infection context and their importance in host resistance to infection. In the long term, molecular knowledge of these mechanisms could be useful for the development of new strategies to combat pneumonia in conjunction with antibiotics”.
Cell adhesion as a therapeutic target in inflammatory breast cancer
Maria Miguel Castro is a student in the doctoral program in Biomedicine, at FMUP, and is developing her doctoral project in the “Cancer Metastasis” group of i3S, under the guidance of researcher Joana Paredes. The project focuses on inflammatory breast cancer, one of the most aggressive and fatal invasive breast cancers, whose main characteristic is the presence of tumor emboli in blood vessels at an early stage of the disease, which contributes to its high capacity for metastasis.
These tumor emboli show an overexpression of proteins important for cell-cell adhesion - which the team has already shown to be associated with poor prognosis in patients with breast cancer - and for the promotion of stem and antioxidant characteristics and resistance to radio and chemotherapy. Maria Miguel Castro explains that “the objective of this project is to study the impact of these cell adhesion molecules in the process of metastasis and therapeutic resistance in inflammatory breast cancer”.
With the support of the Fulbright Scholarship, and with the knowledge and experience of the researcher Andrew Ewald, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, Maryland, Maria Miguel Castro will be able to study the impact of cell-cell adhesion in key stages, namely in the invasive capacity of tumor cells for blood vessels. “I am very excited about this opportunity to be part of my PhD in the laboratory of Professor Andrew Ewald, who is an expert in the field of breast cancer metastasis. In these 6 months, I will learn new techniques and have contact with a different way of working, which will enrich my professional path. In addition, I believe it will be an opportunity to get to know new cultures, which will contribute to my personal growth”.
In vitro models for the development of new therapies for colorectal cancer
Student of the doctoral program in Biomedical Sciences at ICBAS, Sofia Dias is developing her PhD project in the i3S group “Nanomedicines & Translational Drug Delivery”, under the guidance of researcher Bruno Sarmento and co-supervision of researcher Catarina Leite Pereira. “My project focuses on creating in vitro models of colorectal cancer in dynamic flow, which more relevantly mimic different stages of this disease and the physiological conditions where cancer develops”, she explains.
From these models “it will be possible to develop drugs to treat colorectal cancer and evaluate their potential therapeutic effect in a pre-clinical phase in a much faster and less expensive way”.
With the support of the Fulbright grant, Sofia will have the opportunity to join, for six months, the group of researcher Michael J. Mitchell, from the University of Pennsylvania. "Here I will evaluate the impact of dynamic flow in in vitro models and explore the field of nanomedicine in the treatment of colorectal cancer”, Sofia Dias advances. “I am very excited and ready to make the most of this experience. It will be an excellent opportunity to strengthen knowledge in my field of study and reinforce my personal and academic progress”, she underlines.
A Nanovaccine to Fight Glioblastoma
Also as part of his PhD in Biomedical Sciences, Paulo Faria is developing a powerful “nanovaccine” to combat the most common and most lethal cancer of the central nervous system - glioblastoma. The work is being carried out in the “Nanomedicines & Translational Drug Delivery” group, under the supervision of researcher Bruno Sarmento and co-supervision of researcher Hélder A. Santos, from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
The main objective of the project, explains Paulo Faria, “is to use the tools and knowledge in the area of nanomedicine to combine chemotherapy and immunotherapy modalities in a single anticancer therapy that is more effective, longer lasting and at the same time less toxic for the patient”. He adds that at the moment he is “optimizing the nanosystem that I will use to transport different drugs directly to the tumor site (the brain in this case). With this targeted and controlled delivery of drugs, it is possible to increase their efficacy and reduce their toxicity”.
With this Fulbright grant, Paulo Faria will be able to join the group of researcher Mansoor M. Amiji, from Northeastern University, in Boston (Boston, USA), where he will test the efficacy and safety of a nanovaccine in preclinical models of glioblastoma . “Professor Amiji is a reference in the area of nanomedicine and biomaterials for the treatment of cancer and other diseases, so it will be an excellent opportunity for growth both professionally and personally”, emphasizes Paulo Faria.