iBB-Tecnico

IV Annual Meeting Biological Engineering Alumni Network

The IV Annual Meeting of the Biological Engineering Alumni Network will take place at Técnico on the 26th October. This year the event is focused on Circular Economy. Join us for one inspiring day, full of sharing and networking.

Teaching Protein Structure With Tangible 3D Models

Engaging with undergraduate students is an important part of ithe activities of many BB members. In a context of a pedagogical innovation project funded by IST and lead by Miguel Prazeres from BERG-iBB, 1st yr students of biological engineering learn the basics of protein structure by creating tangible 3D models.

Sara Morini Presents PhD Work at Medicon 2019

Sara Morini from SCERG-iBB delivered an oral presentation at the 15th Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing (MEDICON). Sara presented her PhD work in a presentation entitled: “Isolation, characterization and dynamic expansion of non-parenchymal cells for the recellularization of a porcine whole liver”. The work involves a collaboration between iBB and IIS Aragón (Zaragoza, Spain), being supervised at IST by Dr. Ana Fernandes-Platzgummer and Prof. Pedro M. Baptista at IIS Aragón. The conference took place in Coimbra, Portugal on the 26-28th September.

Catia Bandeiras Wins Best Student Paper at MEDICON 2019

Catia Bandeiras from SCERG-iBB was one of the three winners of the “Best Student Paper Track” at the 15th Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing (MEDICON). Catia presented a poster about her paper, focused on the methodology developed during her PhD, entitled “TESSEE – Tool for Early Stem Cells Economic Evaluation”. The work involves a collaboration between iBB, IDSS-MIT (Boston, United States), and medical experts in two American hospitals. The PhD thesis is supervised at IST by Frederico Castelo Ferreira and Stan Neil Finkelstein at IDSS-MIT. The conference took place in Coimbra, Portugal, on 26-28 September.

João Carlos Silva to Defend PhD Thesis in Bioengineering

João Carlos Fernandes da Silva will be defending his PhD thesis in Biotechnology and Biosciences at Instituto Superior Técnico, friday the 27th september 2019 (14:00 H, room PA-3). During the last years, and under the supervision of Frederico Ferreira from SCERG-iBB and Robert Linhardt from RPI, João focused his efforts on the fabrication of hierarchical and biomimetic cartilage constructs. The title of his thesis is "Bioengineering strategies towards the in vitro fabrication of hierarchical and biomimetic cartilage constructs".

Sara Rosa to Defend PhD Thesis in Biotechnology and Biosciences

Sara Rosa will be defending her PhD thesis in Biotechnology and Biosciencesat Instituto Superior Técnico, monday the 9th september 2019 (14:30 H, room PA-3). During the last years, and under the supervision of Ana Azevedo from BERG-iBB and Cláudia Lobato-Silva from SCERG-iBB, Sara explored phenyl boronate chromatography as an alternative technique to purify biomolecules such as antibodies. The title of her thesis is "A phenylboronate chromatography based approach as an effective alternative for downstream processing of biomolecules".

Pedro Pais to Defend PhD Thesis in Biotechnology and Biosciences

Pedro Henrique Magalhães Fernandes Pais will be defending his PhD thesis in Biotechnology and Biosciences at Instituto Superior Técnico, friday the 27th september 2019 (10:00 H, room PA-3). During the last years, and under the supervision of Miguel Teixeira from BSRG-iBB, Pedro studied the intricacies of the regulatory network that controls drug resistance in the fungus Candida glabrata. The title of his thesis is "Unveiling the complex regulatory network governing antifungal drug resistance in Candida glabrata: from new regulators to new effectors".

Diverse Natural Product Biosynthesis Capacities in the Marine Bacterial Genus Aquimarina

Aquimarina is a recently described bacterial genus of increasing research interest due to its high metabolic versatility and emerging role in the cycling of organic matter in marine ecosystems. Using comprehensive functional and comparative genomics, Sandra Godinho Silva, Tina Keller-Costa and Rodrigo Costa from BSRG-iBB revealed a previously underestimated number of gene clusters involved in the biosynthesis of natural products across several Aquimarina species, suggesting they are a promising target for the discovery of new bioactive compounds. The study, published in Environmental Microbiology, results from an extensive analysis of all the 26 Aquimarina genomes available to-date and uncovers 928 secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) present in these genomes. Polyketide synthases, terpene synthases and non‐ribosomal peptide synthetases ranked as the most frequent BGCs encoding drug‐like candidates.

Back Cover of Biotechnology Journal Highlights iBB's Work on Functionalization of Cellulose-based Materials

BERG-iBB researchers led by Miguel Prazeres are developing biomolecular constructs for the precise modification of cellulose matrices with nanostructures and/or biomolecules. The back cover image of the August issue of Biotechnology Journal highlights a recent contribution of the group. The work is part of the FCT-funded project CBM-X.

Optimizing the Performance of Chromatographic Separations Using Microfluidics

The establishment of novel, simpler and improved purification processes is extremely important to make antibody-based treatment options more accessible and with a lower economic burden to healthcare systems and patients. In this context, the development of microfluidic tools for the optimization of chromatography operating conditions can offer advantages such as low consumption of molecules, fast generation of results and ability to automate and multiplex the assays. In a collaboration between INESC-MN and iBB, researchers have recently reported a novel microfluidics-based methodology to perform rapid and multiplexed screening of various chromatography ligands relative to their ability to bind different target molecules in solution. The work was published in the Biotechnology Journal and is expected to contribute to the fields of separation sciences and analytical chemistry and inspire new developments within the purification of biopharmaceuticals or other molecules.

Automated Structure Prediction and Chemical Elucidation of Novel Bacterial Polyketides

Bacterial trans-acyltransferase polyketide synthases (trans-AT PKSs) are complex enzymes encoding the biosynthesis of a large diversity of polyketides, which are secondary metabolites usually possessing antitumoral and antibacterial bioactivities. Trans-AT PKSs are often found in difficult-to-cultivate and understudied microorganisms, making the assessment of their biosynthetic components and genome-guided natural product identification challenging. In a multidisciplinary effort involving researchers from ETH Zürich, Jena University, Institut Pasteur, and BSRG-iBB, a bio- and chemoinformatics web application (TransATor) was created to enable de novo structural prediction of trans-AT PKS-derived polyketides from sequence data, and tested as a structure elucidation-aid in the description of new polyketides from unusual bacterial sources. The results were communicated in Nature Chemical Biology.

Photo details: Aquimarina cultures, the source of the novel polyketide cuniculene. Credits: Patrícia Paula.

Point-of-need Pathogen Detection in Grapes

Pathogenic infections in plant systems are on the rise, making their early detection in the field an important asset in order to avoid propagation amongst the rest of the crops. One biomarker of interest for this detection is Azelaic Acid (AzA). Based on this, a microfluidic device capable of detecting low concentrations of the acid was developed by Eduardo Brás under the supervision of Prof. João Pedro Conde (INESC-MN) and Prof. Pedro Fernandes (iBB), with the collaboration of Prof. Ana Margarida Fortes (FCUL). The results obtained using real samples as well as a description of the system, which exploits the inhibitory effect of AzA on the activity of the enzyme tyrosinase was published in the journal Analyst.

Photo details: Samir Budimčić - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia.