Newsletter iMM

Welcome to iMMagine, the monthly newsletter sharing the most relevant news at Instituto de Medicina Molecular Jo?o Logo Antunes. If you'd prefer to see these news in Portuguese, please subscribe to iMMagine here.

And the news we share this month are great! The illustrated book "Afinal, o que é o cancro?" by Sérgio Dias, was recently launched and can be acquired in the iMM-La?o Hub website. Four new projects were funded at iMM: Pedro Sousa-Victor was awarded by the European Research Council, Zita Carvalho-Santos by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Maria Mota and Pedro Sousa-Victor were awarded in the CaixaResearch Health Research Contest.

Learn more below on the projects that will be developed by these teams.

Pedro Sousa-Victor awarded with an ERC Consolidator Grant

The European Research Council revealed the results of the 2023 ERC Consolidator Grants last week. Pedro Sousa-Victor, principal investigator at iMM, will receive 2 million euros to develop an innovative project in the field of aging over the next five years.

In adults, stem cells are important for maintaining the renewal and repair of organs, such as muscle. Stem cells transplant to restore organ function is a promising therapeutic strategy for diseases associated with aging. However, as our bodies age, organs such as muscle lose their ability to regenerate and limit the integration of stem cells after transplantation. "The work we've been doing over the last few years at iMM has shown that changes in the immune system during aging are important for the decline in the muscle's regenerative capacity", explains Pedro Sousa-Victor. Now, the funding from the ERC will make it possible to discover how the aging of the immune system contributes to the loss of function of muscle stem cells and to develop strategies that increase the success of stem cell transplants in aging organs.

"In this project we will use a multidisciplinary strategy to understand the interaction between immune system cells and stem cells in aging muscle and use this knowledge to improve stem cell transplants as a muscle rejuvenation strategy", continues Pedro Sousa-Victor. "This funding will allow us to expand the boundaries of our research and create a new bridge of knowledge between the field of immune system aging research and the study of stem cell functional decline in the context of regenerative medicine", adds Pedro Sousa-Victor, on the relevance of this funding.

ERC Consolidator Grants are directed for excellent researchers who wish to consolidate their independence as principal investigators. Pedro Sousa-Victor has been a principal investigator at iMM since 2019, in the Neves and Sousa-Victor joint lab. In this funding round, 308 projects across Europe were supported by the ERC. In Portugal, the projects led by researchers Sidh Losa-Mendiratta, from the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, and Manuel Mendes, from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, were also funded.

Zita Carvalho-Santos will develop a pioneering project in the field of metabolism

Zita Carvalho-Santos, group leader at iMM, and?Ricardo Henriques?and?Jorge Carvalho?at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science (IGC) have been awarded by the?Chan Zuckerberg Initiative?to conduct a pioneering project?in the field of metabolism.?Carlos Ribeiro, from the Champalimaud Foundation, and Theodore Alxandrow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory,?were also awarded.

Zita Carvalho-Santos?will lead a project set to explore the organisation of cellular metabolism during oocyte development.?This groundbreaking project holds the promise of unravelling fundamental biological phenomena and is critical for understanding how cellular metabolism impacts cellular functions in both physiological and disease settings.?“All organisms, whether bacteria, plants, fungi, or animals, are composed of the same functional units – cells. Cells are kept alive by the constant production of building blocks and energy, which result from complex transformations involving metabolic processes. Each of these processes has different metabolic requirements. How are these processes efficiently fueled??I believe the answer lies in the compartmentalization of metabolic functions”, says Zita Carvalho-Santos, when questioned about the scientific drive for this research project.?

It’s likely that metabolic processes are set in specific parts of the cell for a higher efficiency of cellular processes. This effect is particularly relevant in larger cells, with the largest cell in the animal body being the oocyte, the focus of this research. The details of which metabolic processes are localised in which parts of the cell, how this spatial distribution is regulated, and what functional significance it holds, remain far from fully understood.?“This project encompasses an interdisciplinary approach and know-how in cell biology, biochemistry, advanced microscopy, microfluidics, and computational science. It will contribute to understanding metabolism across scales by mapping the spatial and temporal impact on cellular processes of the metabolon-cytoskeleton dynamics during the exciting process of oogenesis”, adds?Jorge Carvalho, also a winning team member, on the methodology and multidisciplinarity of the project.?

To?Ricardo Henriques, “Being a part of this collaborative project is truly exciting?for me as it opens up new avenues for developing groundbreaking technologies to help researchers see the inner workings of cells with better clarity. Our team specialises in advanced microscopy techniques that can capture high-resolution pictures of the molecules and structures within cells. By deploying these cutting-edge techniques in this project, we aim to create a detailed map of the location of metabolic enzymes within oocyte cells. The potential of these technologies to be adapted by other scientists for studying biological systems and processes inside cells is immense”.?

And looking to the future, Ricardo Henriques adds he is “thrilled to see how these new methods for capturing metabolism at the molecular level will pave the way for many exciting scientific discoveries in the future”.

Maria Mota and Pedro Sousa-Victor awarded in the CaixaResearch Health Research Contest

iMM researchers Maria Mota and Pedro Sousa-Victor were awarded in the?CaixaResearch Health Research Contest 2023?to advance research in parasitology and aging.?Each will receive approximately 500 000 euros to develop their project.?For this edition of the contest, 11 groundbreaking biomedical and health projects by research institutions and universities in Portugal were selected. This funding underscores the commitment of the “la Caixa” Foundation to champion projects of unparalleled excellence that stand to significantly benefit public health.

In Lisbon, in the COLife alliance institutes, the researchers Christa Rhiner, Carlos Ribeiro, and Alfonso Renart, from the Champalimaud Foundation, Luís Moita, from the Gulbenkian Institute of Science, and?Mariana Pinho, from ITQB-NOVA,?were also awarded.

Maria Mota will develop a project to?deliver new strategies to target?Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria.?Despite a significant decrease in the incidence of the disease between 2000 and 2015, malaria remains a major concern for the World Health Organization, killing one child every minute. It is therefore very important to understand the parasite's life cycle to fight it better. After being bitten by an infected mosquito, the parasites travel to the host's liver, where they infect liver cells.?During this phase of infection, the parasite multiplies exuberantly: each parasite inside a liver cell gives rise to tens of thousands of new parasites, which are then able to infect the blood and cause disease. It’s now known that the number of parasites formed in the liver is associated with the severity of the disease.

The project now funded by the “la Caixa” Foundation will allow the multidisciplinary team led by researcher Maria Mota to explore the relationship between the exacerbated multiplication of parasites in the liver and the severity of the disease. "Understanding these basic mechanisms of parasite development and their interaction with the host will be an asset to open new doors in the fight against malaria," adds Maria Mota.

Pedro Sousa-Victor was awarded to develop a project on the imune regulation of skeletal muscle.?While metabolic diseases and the associated cardiovascular complications have several causes, aging stands out as a major risk factor. The most relevant preventive and therapeutical interventions often revolve around exercise, which improves skeletal muscle function, a key regulator of metabolism. However, aging itself alters the response to exercise and limits the capacity of the current therapies.

As life-expectancy continues to increase, aging-related diseases become major contributors to the increase in health costs. Designing new therapeutical interventions for these diseases is a crucial societal challenge. “In this project now funded by the “la Caixa” Foundation,?we will study how immune aging affects skeletal muscle health”, explains the project leader Pedro Sousa-Victor.?By understanding the changes in the immune system in skeletal muscle during aging, and how they affect metabolic health and the response of muscle to exercise, the researchers will contribute to the development and improvement of the current therapies for aging associated metabolic diseases.?“Our main aim is to develop new strategies to modulate the immune system in the elderly population, to improve metabolic health and response to exercise. Securing funding by the “la Caixa'' Foundation is a determinant step to achieve this aim”, adds Pedro Sousa-Victor.

"Afinal, o que é o cancro?"

Afinal, o que é o cancro? is a collection of articles?written by the researcher Sérgio Dias that explore and explain several characteristics of cancer.?

The preface, written by Professor Manuel Sobrinho Sim?es, is the starting point that arouses our curiosity to read carefully?the twelve chronicles. The pages, filled with illustrations by Helena Pinheiro, lead us to discover more about cancer and the history of scientific research that has changed the way we look at this group of diseases.?

Find out more on the official iMM-La?o Hub website.