Big EU funding coming our way

The European Commission approved four i3S applications to Horizon 2020’s Widening Program. Three ERA Chair and one Twinning project secured 8.5 M€ to the institute.

The three approved ERA Chair, each of them worth €2.5M, entail the constitution of three new outstanding research teams in the fields of immunology, neurobiology and molecular bioengineering. As for the Twinning project, which rakes in €900K in the course of three years, will boost the institute’s capacity in the biomolecular phase separation applied to aging-related illnesses.

This is the first time so many European applications are approved all at once. For Board president Claudio Sunkel “this is a testament to our competitiveness at the international level” and, according to him, this will “leverage our scientific quality, attracting and keeping highly qualified human resources, and to strengthen our global position in the forefront of basic and translational research”.

ImmunoHUB, the immunology ERA Chair, will allow recruiting a renowned international scientist and their research team to work on emerging fields as of yet underdeveloped at i3S, such as immune development, tumor immunology, inflammation or pathogenesis. Nuno Alves and Margarida Saraiva led the grant writing team and the goal, they state, was “to secure an important funding source to create an exceptional platform in the field of Immunology at i3S”.

Generally speaking, a precise coordination of the immune response allows our body to effectively respond to a series of aggressions brought on by pathogenic microorganisms or tumor cells. The immune system is so important that when the immune response is inefficient or unregulated, it often results in infectious diseases, autoimmunity, cancer, and degenerative diseases. Nuno Alves and Margarida Saraiva emphasize that these pathologies “are studied at a cellular a molecular level across all three i3S scientific programs, thus rendering Immunology a transversal area of interest at i3S. Apart from the individual impact the recruitment of this new team entails, this action will promote collaborations with other i3S groups, which will surely raise our overall success”.

At the same time, ImmunoHUB presents the opportunity to “organize a series of seminars, workshops and courses, which will benefit not only the i3S community, but also the whole ecosystem of the University of Porto”.

The MOBILIsE project, another successful ERA Chair, will also provide the means to recruit an entire research team but in the field of Molecular Bioengineering, “focused on precision medicine, namely targeted therapies and molecular diagnosis. This team will be at the core of a cohesive and synergetic research environment that will bring together all interested parties (academia, research institutes, clinicians and industry) in and around Porto. Fernando Jorge Monteiro says that MOBILIsE “will prompt the translation of new molecular targets design into the development of diagnostics tools and therapies addressing the current biggest health challenges, in particular cancer, infection, neurodegenerative diseases, and tissue repair/regeneration, all of them key research areas at i3S”.

According to the researcher, the MOBILIsE project is, therefore, “crucial to increase our research and innovation potential in the field of precision medicine, which in turn will allow a critical mass expansion in Molecular Bioengineering, thrusting the institution toward excellent, sustained and integrative research”. Fernando Jorge Monteiro is pretty clear on this point: “this will turn i3S into a European reference when it comes to Molecular Bioengineering”.

The Neurobiology ERA Chair – NCBIO – was overseen by researcher Mónica Sousa and, much like the other projects, it will open the door to “a new group leader in the field of neuronal cell biology and we’ll be able to offer conditions for them to support their research team’s salaries. Our expectancy is that a new and outstanding research group in this fundamental area of the neurosciences will benefit all – but not limited to – neurosciences research groups”.

Mónica Sousa adds that this project aims “to develop a new neurosciences interface at i3S with the participation of different stakeholders – from researchers, clinicians and patients all the way to the pharmaceutical industry”. “Getting this application approved was only possible with the cooperation of many i3S members”, the researcher points out.

As for PhasAGE: Excellence Hub on Phase Transitions in Aging and Age-Related Disorders, the approved Twinning project, it’s coordinated by Sandra Macedo Ribeiro and involves four European institutions: i3S (head), University of Padua, Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Flanders Institute for Biotechnology.

Sandra Macedo Ribeiro explains that this project “anticipates the organization of practical courses, in an effort to build up the available knowledge in this area at i3S, to establish protocols for the study of biomolecular phase separation mechanisms transversal to several research areas, technical and scientific training of young researchers, and organizing international conferences”.