VISIT 2 - NOVA

Timetable

Nova Medical School & CEDOC in Brief 

NOVA Medical School|Faculdade de Ciências Médicas (NMS|FCM) is an academic unit of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. Currently NMS|FCM has 1.671 students in the Integrated Master Degree in Medicine, 569 postgraduate students and a total of 546 professors and researchers. NMS|FCM is the Medical School with the best tutor/student ratio (1/3) during the clinical years in Portugal and its students obtain excellent results in the medical specialty assessment. NMS|FCM is associated with several health units, allowing a variety of learning environments and a more comprehensive knowledge of hospital reality and primary health care. In addition, the creation of the University Medical Center of Lisbon (Centro Médico Universitário de Lisboa - CMUL), a consortium between NMS|FCM and the Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Central (CHCL), allow to offer better teaching and clinical research conditions. The NMS|FCM Research Campus provides the adequate environment for fundamental and clinical research. 

The two research institutes of NMS|FCM are located in this venue: CEDOC - Centro de Estudos de Doenças Crónicas (Chronic Diseases Research Centre), integrated in a R&D Unit, iNOVA4Health, classified as Excellent, and ToxOmics - Centro de Toxicogenómica e Saúde Humana (Centre for Toxicogenomics and Human Health). NMS|FCM was awarded the Ministry of Health Gold Medal for Distinguished Services. 

NOVA Medical School (NMS|FCM) Research Center CEDOC was created with the mission to pursuit excellence in basic, developmental, preclinical & clinical research, to better understand the molecular mechanisms of chronic diseases and to develop advanced and personalized therapies, which ultimately lead to an improvement of the quality of life and well-being of the population. 

NMS|FCM brings together biomedical, translational and clinical research under a multidisciplinary and collaborative spirit, hosting a strong scientific critical mass with 34 research groups, 133 PhD researchers, 79 Clinicians, and 118 PhD student devoted to understanding a variety of chronic pathologies, from rare to metabolic and autoimmune diseases.

Abstracts of Presentations

Unit of Infection of the New Medical School and its interest in poverty-related infectious diseases 
By Paulo Paixão, MD, PhD, Coordinator of Mechanisms of viral infection

The Unit of Infection of the New Medical School has been involved in recent years in some studies of infections of particular interest to Sub-Saharan Africa, such as congenital rubella or Zika infections. These studies have explored the use of so-called dried-blood spots as a biological sample for detecting IgM and IgG for rubella virus and detecting the RNA of this virus and Zika virus, with promising results for field use. It is our intention to expand this diagnostic use for other infections, with malaria, dengue and chikungunya being our immediate priorities.

Sensorineural Hearing loss the etiological challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa
By João Paço, MD, PhD, Coordinator of Ear, Nose and Throat; Cristina Caroça, MD. PhD, Center for Toxicogenomics and Human Health

ENT humanitarian missions in São Tomé and Principe, found a high prevalence of sensorineural deafness. This disability in a community could be responsible for the low development of a country. The need to find the possible etiological factors is a challenge and an ENT team from Hospital Infante Santo CUF/Nova Medical School did a work, finding a high prevalence of G6PD Def and rubella immunity on a sample of 316 individuals. With this work we had implemented the rubella vaccine and are trying to implement early identification of G6PD Def to avoid some effects of this disease.

Mapping HIV-1 drug resistance in newborns in Angola
By Helena Soares, PharmD, PhD, Head of Immunobiology and Pathogenesis Lab

Vertical transmission (mother-to-child) of drug-resistant HIV-1 strains make newborns particularly vulnerable to treatment inadequacy. We are collaborating with hospitals in Luanda, Angola in order to map HIV-1 mutations conferring drug resistance in newborns. Our ultimate goal is to establish more efficient personalized treatments that account for specificities of drug resistant HIV-1 strains infecting children.

Potential of cationic surfactants in the prevention of bacterial infectious diseases
By Winchil Vaz, PhD, Senior scientist in the group of Lysosomes in Chronic and Infectious Diseases.

One of the interest of our lab is the development of cheap and safe therapies to prevent vertical transmission of bacterial origin namely by Streptococcus agalactiae to use in poor regions of the world. On this project we are collaborating with the Portuguese Center for Disease Control (INSA).

Therapeutic drug monitoring of antiretroviral drugs and use of antiretroviral drugs in special populations.
By Emília Monteiro, MD, PhD, Head of Translational Pharmacology Lab

The visit will be focused on the activities and facilities of the therapeutic drug monitoring lab based at CEDOC. The ongoing scientific projects around improvement of benefit/risk of antiretroviral drugs use in special populations, particularly females will be also presented.

PATIENT INNOVATION in Brief
By Salome Azevedo and Helena Canhao, MD, PhD

Patien-innovation.com is an open free and non-profit project where patients and informal caregivers share innovations they developed to deal with challenges and difficulties they faced in their daily lives, imposed by their disease and disability. There are around 850 solutions published in the platform after medical screening, originated from more than 60 countries. Examples of innovations from Africa are Project Faso Soap, a soap to repeal malaria mosquitos developed by Gérard Niyondiko, SafariSeat from Janna Debble an all-terrain wheelchair, and there are also innovations developed outside Africa that can be very useful in the continent, like 3D printing prosthesis.