Pulido Valente Science Prize rewards i3S work

The 2018 Pulido Valente Science Prize rewarded the i3S researcher Rúben Pereira for the article “A single-component hydrogel bioink for bioprinting of bioengineered 3D constructs for dermal tissue engineering” published in the journal “Materials Horizons”. The jury of the Professor Francisco Pulido Valente Foundation and the Foundation for Science and Technology considered this work as one of the two best articles published in the area of Biomedical Sciences and carried out in a national R&D institution by a researcher less than 35 years old.

Skin lesions caused by trauma or illness (such as burns or chronic wounds) represent a very debilitating condition for patients and have a tremendous impact on society. Despite recent advances in products and therapies for the repair of this organ, there are still limitations regarding their performance and clinical efficacy. In this paper, Rúben Pereira, first author of the paper, explains: "We developed a multidisciplinary strategy for the automatic manufacture of artificial substitutes and in vitro 3D models of skin through the combination of advanced biomaterials, 3D bioprinting, and human cells".

The researcher explained how the work developed: "First we designed on the molecular scale a new biomaterial of natural origin based on pectin (a natural polymer); this biomaterial was then combined with fibroblasts, dermis cells, and 3D printed with cellular hydrogels capable of supporting cell viability after bioprinting and thus stimulated the formation of new dermis tissue with similar composition to the native tissue".

This study, says Rúben Pereira, "demonstrates the potential of a multidisciplinary strategy based on 3D bioprinting for the automatic manufacture of skin substitutes, which can be specific to each patient and has several applications in regenerative medicine". This strategy, says the researcher, "also allows the development of in vitro 3D models of the skin as fundamental tools for the testing of new products and therapies, as well as to better understand the mechanisms that cells use in response to a chronic or acute lesion, to promote the formation of new tissue".

For the researcher, this award represents an important recognition of his PhD work in Biomedical Sciences in "the area of 3D bioprinting for applications in tissue engineering of the skin. It is also the recognition of the work that has been developed in the i3S, more specifically, in the Biocarrier group, led by Pedro Granja, in the area of biofabrication and biofunctional hydrogels".

The Pulido Valente Prize aims to recognize the best-published work in a field of Biomedical Sciences (in 2018 the theme was Biomedical Engineering) that describes research performed by a scientist under 35 years old in a national laboratory. The prize is 10 thousand euros and will be shared with the first author of the other award-winning work, Joana Sacramento, published in the journal “Diabetologia”. The award ceremony will take place on March the 7th at Palácio das Laranjeiras, in Lisbon.