Maria de Sousa Award given to two young researchers from the i3S
The fourth edition of the Maria de Sousa Prize was awarded to two health science projects by researchers from the i3S: Ana Rita Araújo and Joana Gaifem. The prize, worth approximately €30,000 for each winner, also includes an internship at an international centre of excellence in the field of each awarded project.
Promoted by the Portuguese Medical Association and the BIAL Foundation, this prize pays tribute to immunologist Maria de Sousa, a professor and researcher at the University of Porto who died in 2020, and aims to recognise and support young Portuguese researchers, aged 35 or under, working on projects in the area of health sciences.
Understanding ageing at the molecular and cellular level
Entitled “BOOST-Age: Reinforcing the proliferative capacity of aged tissues to maintain the proper functioning of organs”, the project by Ana Rita Araújo, a researcher in the Ageing and Aneuploidy group, aims to understand whether cells that proliferate for longer throughout our lives have a protective role in maintaining the function of different tissues and help to slow down ageing.
To do this, the researcher will use in vitro models, specifically cells from individuals of different ages, and in vivo models with mice of different ages. “Super-mice” will also be used; these mice possess a molecule that researchers already know extends the longevity of these animals because it promotes controlled and regulated cell division.
To date, explains Ana Rita Araújo, “very little is known about the regulation, or lack thereof, of cell division during the ageing process. It is known that throughout our lives, cells begin to divide more and more slowly until they stop and enter the senescence process. This phase is closely linked to the development of an exacerbated inflammatory process that influences the longevity of individuals and the appearance of diseases linked to ageing, such as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and inflammatory diseases. It is therefore important to understand what ageing consists of at a molecular and cellular level.”
Recently, adds the i3S researcher, it was discovered “that there is a cell cycle regulation mechanism responsible for maintaining the proliferative capacity of cells, and with my project I want to investigate whether sustaining this mechanism in vivo in more proliferative tissues, such as the intestine and spleen, keeps them ‘young’ for longer in contrast to less proliferative tissues such as the brain or the heart.”
The objective, summarises Ana Rita Araújo, “is to understand whether improving the proliferation of aged cells is essential for preserving the function of tissues and organs, thus contributing to the extension of healthy lifespan.” Part of this work will be developed at ERIBA/UMCG – European Institute for the Biology of Ageing, in the Netherlands.
New strategies for preventing inflammatory bowel disease
Joana Gaifem’s project is “Feeding immunity: glycans as nutritional agents in the host-microbiome dynamics in IBD” and its main objective is to contribute to the development of new strategies for preventing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
This disease, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is diagnosed mainly in young adults and currently does not have a treatment that is effective for all patients. It is also a multifactorial disease, which makes it even more difficult to predict who will develop the disease and how to prevent or treat it. Joana Gaifem will study samples from IBD patients and healthy individuals, as well as experimental mouse models, to understand the dynamics between the intestinal microbiota and the host, with glycans as a key element in this interaction.
With this research project, explains the researcher from the Immunology, Cancer & GlycoMedicine group (led by Salomé Pinho), “the aim is to explore whether the profile of glycans (sugars) present in the host’s intestinal mucosa is capable of defining the composition of the intestinal microbiota, and how this interaction can dictate a healthy intestine or an inflammatory environment (disease). The main objective will be to contribute to the development of new therapies, paving the way for preventive strategies for IBD.”
The other winners of the Maria de Sousa Prize are Maria Arez, from the Institute of Bioengineering and Biosciences of the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon; Pedro Nascimento Alves, from the Egas Moniz Study Centre of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon; and Samuel Gonçalves, from the Institute for Research in Life Sciences and Health (ICVS) of the School of Medicine of the University of Minho. The winning works were chosen by a jury presided over by neuroscientist Rui Costa, president and CEO of the Allen Institute, in the United States.
About Ana Rita Araújo
Born in Sabrosa, Vila Real, Ana Rita Araújo is a researcher at i3S and a general training intern at the Centro Hospitalar Universitário São João. She holds a degree and a master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Porto. It was at this university that she began her PhD in the GABBA programme, founded by Professor Maria de Sousa, although she developed her thesis at Imperial College London. More recently, she completed her Medical degree at the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences (ICBAS).
During her PhD, Ana Rita Araújo discovered the world of cell division, real-time microscopy, and cell cycle control through feedback mechanisms. This work revealed that the duration of mitosis (the process of cell division) must be short and independent of the time spent by the cell in the remaining phases of the cell cycle to ensure cell viability and was published in the prestigious journal Molecular Cell.
After completing her PhD, the researcher began her postdoctoral studies at The Francis Crick Institute in London, and then returned to Portugal where she joined the “Ageing and Aneuploidy” group at the i3S, led by Elsa Logarinho. Her main focus of study is to understand how the cell cycle is regulated/deregulated with ageing. This can lead “old” cells to make mistakes and enter into cell death processes, leading to tissue destabilisation and the onset of degenerative diseases. This work will soon be published and has already received several distinctions such as her CEEC, two FCT projects, and an EMBO Scientific Exchange Grant.
About Joana Gaifem
Born in Porto, Joana Gaifem graduated in Biology from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP) and completed her master’s degree at the same university. She began her scientific career as a fellow at IBMC, which is now part of i3S, in a project that studied marine cyanobacteria and their secondary metabolism. She continued as a fellow in a project in the area of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (at IBMC and ICVS, in Braga) and was then selected for the Interuniversity PhD Programme in Ageing and Chronic Diseases.
Her PhD project was developed in the group of researcher Ricardo Silvestre (ICVS, University of Minho, Braga), where she investigated the intestinal microbiota and metabolites associated with protection against the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This project, whose work was published in the journals Frontiers in Physiology and mBio, allowed her to obtain a research grant from EMBO to develop part of her research at the University of Jena, Germany. After her PhD, in 2019, she joined the group of researcher Salomé Pinho, at the i3S, where she is investigating the role of glycans in the context of IBD.
At i3S, she obtained a CEEC contract in the national competition of the FCT, as well as international funding from ESCMID and ECCO to develop her research. Recently, the research group she is part of discovered a glycan signature present in the ASCA antibodies of patients with Crohn’s Disease, which allows predicting years before diagnosis the onset of the disease. Furthermore, these antibodies with altered glycans appear to play a role in the initiation of the inflammatory process. This study was recently published in the journal Nature Immunology.
About the BIAL Foundation
Created in 1994 by BIAL together with the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, it has the mission of encouraging the scientific study of human beings, both from a physical and spiritual point of view. The Bial Foundation is a non-profit, public utility institution and has the High Patronage of the President of the Republic.
Among its activities, it is worth highlighting the awarding of scientific prizes in the field of health sciences research, namely the BIAL Prize for Clinical Medicine, the BIAL Award in Biomedicine (one of the biggest European prizes in the health area), and the Maria de Sousa Prize, in partnership with the Portuguese Medical Association.