Latest news

Sandra Sousa and Sílvia Vale-Costa participated for the first time at the Europneumo25: the European meeting on the molecular biology of the pneumococcus. They were both selected for oral presentations (out of 150 participants), to demonstrate how plasma membrane repair mechanisms can be harnessed to fight Streptococcus pneumoniae infection, the...

Beatriz Lopes and João Monteiro, Master students at our lab, participated in the latest IJUP Meeting (Young Researchers Meeting from the University of Porto) and presented their data orally and by poster for the first time. Well done you both!

Joana Pereira did it again! Her work entitled "Identification of novel therapeutic targets to overcome lung damage induced by Streptococcus pneumoniae infection" received an Honorable Mention at the Public Health Award Dr Ricardo Jorge 2024 ceremony. Once again, this award highlights the impact of our research on pneumonia to national public...

Ricardo Lima, who is doing his MSc thesis with us, has just been awarded with the 2024 Gulbenkian New Talent scholarship! This program from the Gulbenkian Foundation aims to support each year 18 outstanding university students in the fields of Biology, Chemistry, Humanities and Social Sciences to complete their graduations and to stimulate...

Joana Pereira has successfully defended her PhD thesis on the "Mechanisms of host resistance to pneumolysin attack" on the 17th of September. Her thesis was supervised by S. Sousa and the main opponents were Dr Michael Connor (Pasteur Institute, FR) and Dr Serge Mostowy (LSHTM, UK). We are all very proud of you Joana! We wish you the best for...

Francesca Palma is a third-year PhD student of Biochemical and Biotechnological Sciences from the Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli". She has joined our lab for a 6-month internship to develop a high-content microscopy protocol that allow measuring damage to the plasma membrane of epithelial cells in real-time (Draq7/Hoechst...

Hugo Maldonado is a third-year Bachelor student of Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour. Hugo has recently joined our lab for a 2-month internship to produce molecular tools that allow the identification of the proxeome of the ER chaperone Gp96 in cells intoxicated with pneumolysin, the toxin produced by...

Our PhD student, Joana Pereira, was awarded an EMBO fellowship to support her 4-month scientific mission to the laboratory of Professor John Leong, at Tufts University in Boston! Joana will validate if the bacteria Streptococcus pneumonia triggers the same mechanisms of plasma membrane repair as pneumolysin, which is a pore-forming toxin released...