i3S’s scientific excellence attracts Marie Curie Fellows
Over the next two years, researchers Daniel Carneiro and Vanessa Rodrigues will join and develop their research projects at the i3S under the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF), awarded by the European Union. Each researcher will receive approximately €207,000 in funding.
These fellowships are highly competitive (with 1,700 proposals selected for funding out of over ten thousand submitted) and aim to support the creative and innovative potential of postdoctoral researchers who present high-impact research projects of excellence and who wish to acquire new skills through advanced training, international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral mobility. The final decision also takes into account criteria such as the quality of the scientific supervisor and the host institution.
The 2024/2025 edition saw a record number of applications: 10,360, of which 285 were Portuguese. In Portugal, 40 projects were funded, with the European Commission awarding MSCA-PF funding to 15 proposals and, additionally, through the ERA Fellowships programme, a further 25 projects for national institutions were supported, including that of researcher Vanessa Rodrigues.
Unravelling the molecular mechanisms conferring tolerance to oxygen Deprivation
Entitled “URC-Hypoxia - Unlocking the Redox Code: Mapping the Molecular Mechanisms of Hypoxia Tolerance", the project led by Daniel Carneiro, who holds a doctorate in Biological Sciences – Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Brasília (UnB), will be developed in the “Glial Cell Biology” research group, under the supervision of the group leader, João B. Relvas.
“I met Professor João Relvas in 2018 through a collaboration between his group and the group of Professor José Roberto Leite, from the Faculty of Medicine at UnB, where I have been conducting research since 2016. Since then, we have collaborated on several projects, and in 2023, I spent six months at i3S to carry out part of a project I lead in Brazil,” explains Daniel Carneiro.
His choice of this group to develop the now award-winning Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship project, he adds, is due to “João Relvas’s extensive experience in cell signalling, particularly in redox mechanisms related to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration, as well as his mastery of crucial project methodologies such as proteomics and advanced microscopy".
This synergy of expertise, Daniel Carneiro emphasises, “will be essential for the development of my project, which consists of unravelling the molecular mechanisms that confer tolerance to hypoxia in naturally oxygen-deprived animals".
Novel therapeutic strategy to halt melanoma metastasis
An engineer by training, with a doctorate in Molecular Genetics and Pathology (ICBAS and FMUP) and research experience at Ipatimup, Vanessa Rodrigues pursued her research career at the National University of Singapore, in the fields of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. After six years leading a research project in Asia, she returned to Porto and i3S (of which Ipatimup is part) to embrace a new challenge and open up new possibilities for collaboration between Asia and Portugal.
Vanessa Rodrigues explains that she chose the i3S “Molecular Biomaterials” group, led by researcher Helena Azevedo, due to its “vast experience in various techniques relevant to my project, including biomaterials engineering, biotechnology, and synthetic chemistry. Dr Azevedo has an extensive network of collaborators working on phage display (Portugal, UK) and peptide therapeutics (USA) who can provide me with excellent collaboration opportunities".
The project led by Vanessa Rodrigues aims to identify peptides that act on melanoma cells, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and also on extracellular vesicles, small particles released by cells that are used as a form of communication between cells. This novel therapeutic strategy, the researcher emphasises, “aims to halt the formation of metastases, one of the main causes of death in invasive melanoma".
The outcomes of this fellowship, clarifies Vanessa Rodrigues, “will benefit several scientific communities, including those working in the fields of biomaterials and peptide and cancer science". By targeting both melanoma cells and extracellular vesicles, “this project introduces a dual-targeting strategy with the potential to transform the understanding of melanoma biology and open up new avenues for more effective therapies".
About the Marie Skłodowska – Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships
Inspired by the French-Polish scientist who won two Nobel Prizes and is renowned for her work in the field of radioactivity, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships fund excellent research and innovation and support researchers at all stages of their careers with new knowledge and skills through mobility across countries and continents and exposure to different sectors and disciplines.
These fellowships are highly competitive and aim to support the creative and innovative potential of doctoral researchers who present high-impact research projects of excellence and who wish to acquire new skills through advanced training, international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral mobility.