Biomolecular Engineering Lab

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Excellent Young Researcher award from Antibodies Journal to Manuel Matos

2019

Our PhD student Manuel Matos was awarded the Excellent Young Researcher certificate by the Antibodies Journal. Manuel received the certificate during the attendance of the 257th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition: 'Chemistry for New Frontiers' in Orlando, USA where he presented a poster.

The certificate was received in hand by Dr. Aaron Wecksler from Genentech.

Inês Moreira was in Spain for the Conference on Multifunctional, Hybrid and Nanomaterials

March 13, 2019

Inês Moreira presented her poster about 'Biopolymeric hybrid films for the detection of volatile organic compounds' at the 6th International Conference on Multifunctional, Hybrid and Nanomaterials in Sitges, Spain, on 11-15 March 2019.

Participation in the BIODEVICES 2019 Conference, February 2019

February 26, 2019

Gonçalo Santos & Ana Carolina Pádua were both in Prague, on February 22 - 24, 2019, presenting their work related with the electronic nose and SCENT project at the 'Electronic Health Records and Standards Session' in 

New people arrived in the team

February 12, 2019

Fábio, Sara, Iana and Margarida are the four new colleagues that joined the team in February 2019. They all know quite well the lab since they have been part of the team before as master or PhD students. We are very happy to welcome them again and looking forward to this new professional challenge together.

We hope to have many news about their achievements in the near future but meantime we also want to share their plans in the new positions and to know more about who they are.

Ana Margarida Dias

Ana Margarida Dias

Junior Researcher

Giancristofaro, A, Barbosa AJM, Ammazzalorso A, Amoia P, Filippis BD, Fantacuzzi M, Giampietro L, Maccallinia C, Amoroso R.  2018.  Discovery of new FXR agonists based on 6-ECDCA binding properties by virtual screening and molecular docking. MedChemComm. (9):1630-1638.Website

Antibodies Excellent Young Researcher Award

February 6, 2019

The winners of the Antibodies Travel Awards for 2019 were announced!

Manuel Matos, PhD Student in Bioengineering Systems (MIT-Portugal Program) was awarded with an Excellent Young Researcher certificate.

New visiting scientist in the team

January 9, 2019

We have a new visiting scientist at the lab. Her name is Larissa Martins, she is coming from Brazil and is doing a BSc in Chemistry at Universidade de São Paulo. Larissa will stay with us for around 2 months, until the end of February 2019, and her work will be related to the SCENT project.

New publication in Journal of Chromatography A.

November 21, 2018

Human serum albumin (HSA) is an important biopharmaceutical agent that has the capacity to carry diverse molecules and increase their circulation half-life time, but also to function as a disease biomarker.

Different chromatographic and non-conventional approaches for its purification were explored by Raquel dos Santos together with Carina Figueiredo, Aline Viecinski, Ana Pina, Arménio Barbosa and Cecília Roque and are now published in the Journal of Chromatography A.

dos Santos, R, Figueiredo C, Viecinski AC, Pina AS, Barbosa AJM, Roque ACA.  2019.  Designed affinity ligands to capture human serum albumin. Journal of Chromatography A. 1583:88-97. AbstractWebsite

Human serum albumin (HSA) in an important therapeutic agent and disease biomarker, with an increasing market demand. By proteins and drugs that bind to HSA as inspiration, a combinatorial library of 64 triazine-based ligands was rationally designed and screened for HSA binding at physiological conditions. Two triazine-based lead ligands (A3A2 and A6A5), presenting more than 50% HSA bound and high enrichment factors, were selected for further studies. Binding and elution conditions for HSA purification from human plasma were optimized for both ligands. The A6A5 adsorbent yielded a purified HSA sample with 98% purity at 100% recovery yield under mild binding and elution conditions.

Trends in Biotechnology journal cover

November 16, 2018


The cover of Trends in Biotechnology issue of December is out and it is a beautiful figure prepared by Arménio Barbosa together with Catarina Oliveira. 

ITQB NOVA PhD Students Meeting

November 14, 2018

Our two PhD students, Raquel Santos and Ana Carolina Pádua, presented their research work at the 9th ITQB NOVA PhD Students Meeting. The meeting held on 7-9th November, at ITQB, was organized by the PhD students to present and discuss their work amongst the scientific community.

Congratulations to our Master students

November 11, 2018


We could not be more proud in the last weeks. Five of our Master students finished successfully their MSc with their Master thesis viva. Congratulations to all for the great work, much effort and full dedication. Wishing all the best to your future challenges.

Cláudia Alves (Master in Biomedical Engineering) - Signal processing and automatic classification tools in the development of a new optp-electronic 

Sea2See project

Sea2See: Bio-inspired materials for fish spoilage control

The Sea2See project aims at identifying volatile organic compounds (VOCs) resulting from microbial growth in fish and its freshness monitoring by creating new tools towards gas sensing.

New people in the team

November 6, 2018

We are happy to welcome our recent lab members!

Emi Ramou is our new post-doc researcher, a physicist that comes from Greece and will help us in SCENT project.

Emi Ramou

Emi Ramou

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Education

PhD in Liquid Crystals, University of Patras, Greece
MSc in Physics of Materials, University of Patras, Greece
BSc in Physics, University of Patras, Greece

Former Positions

2016

ERASMUS+ Traineeship Program, at the Department of Chemistry, University of Hull, UK, supervised by Prof. G. H. Mehl (6 months)

Paper in the spotlight

October 29, 2018

Our paper "Protein- and Peptide-Based Biosensors in Artificial Olfaction" was spotlighted @BiotechTimes.

You can check it here: 

https://biotechtimes.ca/2018/09/09/protein-and-peptide-based-biosensors-in-artificial-olfaction/

ECM31 Young Scientist Award

October 3, 2018

Our PhD student Raquel Santos was awarded the ECM31 Young Scientist Award to attend the ECM31 to present her work on the development of a new technique for protein crystallization at 31st European Crystallographic Meeting in Oviedo, Spain.