REPORT 2013 INSTITUTO DE MEDICINA MOLECULAR IMMFACULDADE DE MEDICINA DA UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA INSTITUTO DE MEDICINA MOLECULAR (IMM) FACULDADE DE MEDICINA DA UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA Edifício Egas Moniz Av. Professor Egas Moniz 1649-028 Lisbon Portugal Phone: +351 217 999 411 Fax: +351 217 999 412 [email protected] www.imm.fm.ul.pt facebook.com/immolecular twitter.com/immolecular Linkedin.com/companies/instituto-de-medicina-molecular All rights reserved to IMM No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. PROJECT CONCEPT AND MANAGEMENT IMM Communication Unit | [email protected] Design Bloom up Edition 1.000 copies Photos Alexandre Jesus Andreia Machado Daniel Guerreiro Sales Ibiza Silvia Carvalho Srchaitanya Sridhara Tânia Carvalho contents 66 LUÍS MOITA LAB 68 MARIA MOTA LAB 70 SOFIA OLIVEIRA LAB 72 TIAGO OUTEIRO LAB 08 74 MIGUEL PRUDÊNCIO LAB EDITORIAL 76 MÁRIO RAMIREZ LAB 78 CARLOTA SALDANHA LAB J. LOBO ANTUNES 12 80 NUNO SANTOS LAB MARIA CARMO FONSECA 82 LEONOR SAÚDE LAB IMM AT A GLANCE 84 ANA SEBASTIÃO LAB 86 BRUNO SILVA-SANTOS LAB 88 PEDRO SIMAS LAB 90 ANA E. SOUSA LAB 14 92 HENRIQUE VEIGA-FERNANDES LAB 94 ELSA ANES LAB RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS 16 96 JOÃO GONÇALVES LAB PAPERS 2013 | CITATIONS PER YEAR | MOST RELEVANT PAPPERS 1 Year in the life of imm 98 22 24 services and resources FACILITIES th 10 Research Labs 100 ANIMAL FACILITY 100 BIOIMAGING anniversary 26 SÉRGIO ALMEIDA LAB 101 BIOSAFETY LEVEL 3 LABORATORY 28 JOÃO BARATA LAB 101 FLOW CYTOMETRY UNIT 30 GONÇALO BERNARDES LAB 102 HISTOLOGY SERVICE 32 MARIA ERMELINDA CAMILO LAB 102 IMM BIOBANK 34 MARIA CARMO-FONSECA LAB 103 ZEBRA FISH FACILITY 36 MIGUEL CASTANHO LAB 38 SUSANA CONSTANTINO LAB UNITS 40 LUÍS COSTA LAB 105 COMMUNICATION UNIT 42 MAMEDE DE CARVALHO LAB 108 105 EDUCATION & ADVANCED TRAINING UNIT 44 SÉRGIO DIAS LAB 106 FUNDING PROGRAMS OFFICE 46 JOAQUIM FERREIRA LAB ongoing 106 INFORMATION SYSTEMS UNIT 48 JOSÉ FERRO LAB partnerships 107 MANAGEMENT UNIT 50 LUÍSA FIGUEIREDO LAB 107 QUALITY AND SAFETY IN LABORATORY UNIT 52 JOÃO EURICO FONSECA LAB 54 EDGAR GOMES LAB 56 LUÍS GRAÇA LAB 58 DOMINGOS HENRIQUES LAB 110 60 JOÃO LACERDA LAB 62 LUÍSA LOPES LAB INSTITUTIONAL 64 MUSA MHLANGA LAB PARTNERSHIPS editorial The Instituto de Medicina Molecular (IMM) is one of the leading biomedical research institutions in Portugal. It is part of the Centro Académico de Medicina de Lisboa, which integrates the largest university hospital of the country and the School of Medicine of the University of Lisbon. The IMM was created in 2002 following the merger of five centers dedicated to research in the areas of Cell and Molecular Biology, Developmental Biol- ogy, Biochemistry, Immunology, Nutrition and Neurosciences at the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa. IMM was awarded the special status of Laboratório Associado by the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. Our strategic priority has since been to attract Group Leaders amongst junior scientists trained abroad. Up to present, twenty six new Group Leaders were recruited, and the total number of people in the Institute increased from approximately 100 to over 450. In 2013, IMM included 36 cutting-edge laboratories working in a broad range of fields that encompass multidisciplinary approaches ranging from basic to clinical and translational research. Altogether, 217 researchers holding a PhD degree and 83 PhD students work at IMM. Their expertise covers Cell and Developmental Biology, Immunology, Infection, Neurosciences and Oncobiology. Research at IMM is also clinically oriented and addresses the major disease areas of the XXIth century – from cancer to Alzheimer and stroke, arthritis, HIV/AIDS, or malaria. We do not share the pessimistic view about the risk of “brain drain” in our country. In fact we are actually a case of “brain gain”: the enthusiasm and vibrant atmosphere at our institute have managed to attract 37 talented scientists from 15 nations and four different continents, as well as Portuguese nationals returning from abroad. We are pleased to highlight some of IMM’s accomplishments in 2013. We would like to emphasize the increasing number of scientific papers published in high impact journals and internationally registered patents. IMM researchers continued to succeed in attracting international competitive funds to the Institute. Namely, Edgar Gomes was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant, Henrique Veiga- -Fernandes received an Innovator Award of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and Miguel Prudêncio was awarded a Phase II Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant. IMM researchers were also highly appraised at national level: Prémio Pessoa was awarded to Maria Mota, Prémio Pfizer to Luís Moita, Prémio BES Inovação to Miguel Prudêncio, and Prémio Dona Antónia Ferreira to Carmo Fonseca. The success of IMM relies on hard work and creativity of dedicated researchers, students, administrators and support teams. We do believe that we should aim to more and better science, so you can put the new knowledge to serve our main goals – the better understanding of disease and the development of new strategies of diagnosis and cure. In September 21st we celebrated our X anniversary with a special meeting with our major stakeholders, in the presence of Paulo Macedo, the Minister of Health, and Leonor Parreira, Secretary of State for Science, dedicated to the topics: The convergence in life sciences; Basic and applied science: duel or duet; Teaching Medicine teaching Science: is there a difference. In December 13th we had a wonderful party for all the people that work at IMM and their families. We are very fortunate that the IMM has been able to build an identity which combines excellence in research, cooperation between its scientists, openness in its management decisions, and an overall feeling of pride for what it has achieved to overcome the difficult challenges of our time and an immensurable joy in searching for answers to the problems that affect the patients we care, and unrevealing mysteries of the sciences of life. BOaRD OF Scientific TRUSTEES Advisory Committees Undertake periodic evaluations to the IMM specific SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY FISCAL COUNCIL programmes and include international experts of COMMITTEES scientific fields analysed. BOaRD OF Cell and Developmental Biology DIRECTORS Programme (2013) John G Gribben, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine, ADMINISTRATION COUNCIL OF University of London, UK BOARD SCIENTISTS Petra Schwille, Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry, Germany Phillippe Pierre, Centre d’Immunologie de MANAGING Marseille-Luminy, France DIRECTOR Fiona Watt, King’s College London, UK Quality Neurosciences Programme (2010) Management Michael Spyer, University College London, UK Christine Gall, University of California, USA Charles Warlow, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK Research Education & Advanced Research Structural Reinhard Dengler, Medizinische Hochschule, Hannover, Units Support Services Training Germany Research Labs Communication Unit Animal Facilities Immunology and Infectious Funding Programs Bioimaging Office Diseases Programme (2009) Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory Anne O’Garra, National Institute for Medical Research, UK Information Systems Flow Cytometry Alain Fischer, Hôpital Necker Enfants Malade, Paris, France Management Unit William Paul, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Histology Diseases, NIH, USA Quality and Safety in Laboratory IMM Biobank Philippe Sansonetti, Institut Pasteur, France Antonio Freitas, Institut Pasteur, France 12 report 2013 Instituto de medicina molecular imm at a glance report 2013 13 imm at a Glance IMM HIGHLIGHTS 2013 TOTAL EXPENDITURE in euros total researchers 13.925,388€ 76% Competitive Competitive External External 457 10.573,682€ 20% core funding with PhD Core Funding 2.766,036€ 217 donations 2% Donations 287,376€ PhD Students 2% industry Industry 83 298,278€ MSc Students 43 COMPETITIVE Bachelor Students EXTERNAL FUNDING 114 in euros International Research Fellows 10.573,698€ 37 TOPICS OF INTEREST fct grants & 59% contracts FCT Grants & fellowships & contracts T cell Homeostasis RNA biology RESEARCH UNITS & fellowships Immune tolerance Regulation of gene expression 6.285,997€ Innate Immunity Stem cells 36 Inflammation Tissue and organ regeneration 21% fct/ Malaria Haematopoiesis FCT al/ infrastructure € HIV/AIDS Angiogenesis START-UPS infrastructure 2.187,454 Host-pathogen interactions Metastasis international 12% EC international ce Stroke Osteoporosis and Arthritis 4 1.219,560€ 6% other national other national Parkinson’s disease Drug discovery € Other 2% other international 278,087 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis international Cognitive decline 203,317€ research highlights report 2013 15 research highlights PAPERS 2013 Chromosomal Contact Permits Transcription between Coregu- Correia NC, Durinck K, Leite AP, Ongenaert M, Rondou P, Speleman lated Genes. Cell 155, 505 www.cell.com. F, Enguita FJ, Barata JT (2013). Novel TAL1 targets beyond protein-coding genes: identification of TAL1-regulated microRNAs Schmolka N, Serre K, Grosso AR, Rei M, Pennington DJ, Gomes AQ, 23 in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Leukemia 27(7). 1603-6. Silva-Santos B. 2013 Epigenetic and transcriptional signatures of publications in journals doi: 10.1038/leu.2013.63. with an impact factor stable