Participation in the 4th Meeting SCI PT Researchers

The 4th edition of the International Meeting of Portuguese Researchers in Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) took place on September 16th at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL). The event was organized by the Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes (iMM) research group, led by Dr. Leonor Saúde.

https://www.medicina.ulisboa.pt/4th-meeting-sci-pt-researchers

Our lab was well-represented by PhD students Bárbara Sousa, José Gabriel Figueiredo, and Bruna Cruz, who delivered two oral presentations and one poster communication. Bárbara gave a short talk on her PhD work, titled ‘Rehabilitation-Induced Serum Proteome Dynamics in Spinal Cord Injury Patients’. José Gabriel presented his research on the ‘Activation of a Rhythmic Movement Pattern of the Lower Limbs During the Implementation of a Brain-Machine Interface in a Case of Complete Spinal Cord Injury’. Meanwhile, Bruna presented a poster sharing key findings from our GoBack project, titled ‘What Drives Neuronal Regeneration? A Comparative Study of Early Injury Responses in Rat Regenerating vs. Non-Regenerating Neurons’.

We are thrilled to announce that José Gabriel won the prize for Best Oral Communication. Congratulations to José Gabriel on this well-deserved recognition, and a big thank you to all three for presenting and disseminating the work from our lab!

The most recent member in our team: Welcome Jhenifer!

This month, we welcomed Jhenifer Rodrigues, a PhD Student from the Institute Carlos Chagas, Fiocruz, in Brazil, for a 6-month stay in our lab.

Jhenifer's PhD work 'Bacterial L-asparaginases: unraveling the mechanism of action and immunogenicity for the development of improved biopharmaceuticals.' envisages the development of an innovative therapeutic approach to treat leukemia. Jhenifer's research group in Fiocruz aims to improve treatments for diseases of interest to public health through the development of more specific molecules to achieve the desired cure with quality of life for patients.

Welcome Jhenifer! We hope you enjoy your stay in Aveiro!

A new PhD in our lab: Congratulations Patrícia!

On 22nd April 2024, our former PhD student in Biomedicine, Patrícia Correia, successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled ‘New Molecular Targets and Signaling Pathways for Spinal Cord Injury Therapeutics’. The event took place at the University of Aveiro, and the jury was composed by Dr. Mónica Sousa [Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde (i3s), University of Porto, Portugal], Dr. Veronica Estrada (Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, e.V., Aachen, Germany), Dr. Víctor Carriel Araya (Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Spain) and Dr. Miguel Pais Vieira (iBiMED, University of Aveiro, Portugal).

For the past 4 years, Patrícia has been working on the identification of new genetic targets and signaling pathways associated with neuroregeneration after injury, with the supervision of our PI, Dr. Sandra Vieira, and Dr. Frank Bosse, from the Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Congratulations, Dr. Patrícia! All the best for your future!