RNA Systems Biology - Gama & Pinto Lab

⚠️ Don't miss the next BioISI Research Seminar session🤩

Francisco R. Pinto (co-leader of the RNA Systems Biology - Gama & Pinto Lab at BioISI - CIÊNCIAS ULisboa) will talk about: "When neighbors play a role: A systems-level analysis of protein interactions conditioning cancer driver mutation effects". Take note of the details:

📅 June 18th
⏰11:30 AM
📍 José Manuel Rebordão Auditorium (3rd Floor, C1 Building, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa)

ℹ️ https://bioisi.pt/agenda/31

A collective effort from our lab, the and a wonderful group of researchers from and around the world sharing our vision and experiences with daily use and applications of omics approaches, from the technologies to data analysis and management and biological interpretation!

This is how we found the door to our lab this morning 🥰 Sophia’s poem immediately comes to mind. One can only imagine how it felt 52 years ago. To finally become free to think and to speak out. These are the pillars of science, if nothing else. And that’s why we need to remember and celebrate as if it were yesterday.

A day of milestones in the lab ✨

Huge congratulations to our PI, Margarida Gama-Carvalho, on achieving her Habilitation in Biochemistry — an important recognition of a long journey in RNA biology and transcriptome research.

At the same time, we’re celebrating Elisa Lunardon, our Erasmus student from the University of Trieste, who just completed her MSc in Medical Biotechnology and Diagnostics with a top grade of 110/110 🎓

Her thesis — “Development of a Screening Library for Selection of Sequence Elements for Cell-Type-Specific mRNA Expression” — was developed in our lab and is a great contribution to our work on controlling gene expression with precision.

Very proud of both achievements and of the team behind them.

Now… back to the bench 🔬

We’re excited to share the editorial of our 2025 Frontiers in Pharmacology Research Topic: “Non-coding RNAs as potential therapeutics and biomarkers for human diseases.”

Once thought of as “junk”, non-coding RNAs are now recognised as key regulators of gene expression, with growing relevance for disease mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and RNA-based therapies.

This Research Topic brings together 15 articles on miRNAs, lncRNAs and circRNAs, connecting fundamental RNA biology with translational pharmacology.
The image shows Figure 1 from the editorial, highlighting the main disease areas covered in this collection - from cancer to neurodegenerative and inflammatory conditions - where ncRNAs are emerging as biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

Great teamwork with Alice Conigliaro and Chiara De Santi, and many thanks to all the authors who contributed.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2025.1753536

Our co-PI Francisco Rodrigues Pinto on the news 👏👏👏

Cientistas portugueses procuram tratar a dermatite atópica com uma bactéria da pele Consórcio europeu quer transformar uma bactéria ligada à acne num veículo de diagnóstico e tratamento da dermatite atópica. Uma equipa da Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa faz parte da investigação.

This week we said our farewells over a pizza to Elisa, our MSc student from the program in Medical and Diagnostic Biotechnology of the Università degli Studi di Trieste, who will soon be heading home after spending nine months with us working on her dissertation. It was great having you in the lab, and we wish you all the best for what comes next! 👋
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Our work on viral non-coding RNAs well represented today at the 9th Conference of the ULisboa redeSAÚDE with a pitch presentation and poster by showcasing her MSc dissertation work 👏👏👏