cmdtla.org - Saúde Tropical

LA Denomination:

Centro de Malária e Outras Doenças Tropicais

Original Research Contract:

(CMDT LA research contract technical)

Director:

Luís Alfredo Pires de Távora Tavira

Research Unit(s) Involved:

Centro de Malária e Outras Doenças Tropicais

Reporting Period:

2005 to 2007

Instituition(s) on which it is based:

Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa ^(PC)

Additional Information:

The Centre for Malaria & Tropical Diseases (CMDT; http://cmdtla.org) was created in 1992, as a R&D Centre at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (IHMT; http://www.ihmt.unl.pt), financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). After an excellent international evaluation in December 2004, it ranks to Associate Laboratory. This report covers the Centre’s activities from 2005 to 2007.

Two of the research groups that integrate the Centre are located outside IHMT premises: the Biotechnology group is located at INETI campus (http://www.ineti.pt/uo/uo/?uo=12322) and the Health Education group is located at the Faculdade de Motricidade Humana (http://www.fmh.utl.pt/).

Similarly, the Virology team is split between IHMT and the Hospital Egas Moniz, where the HDV and HIV groups are respectively located.

Management Structure of the LA:

CMDT is managed by a SCIENTIFIC COORDINATOR (Director) and a SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL, aggregating all PhD members of the Centre. Scientific Council meetings are scheduled 2-3 times per year to analyse and approve financial and RD reports presented by the Director, as well as to discuss and approve of the annual plan of activities. Some strategic activities are also discussed at this level.

Since 2006, a COORDINATION COMMITTEE was created, including senior PhD members and leaders of Research Groups. This Committee meets regularly and supports the Director in current management activities and decisions.

Furthermore, it also supports strategic decisions of the coordination, including institutional alliances, new research lines and modification of the existing scientific areas, international and networking strategy, training programs and courses, as well as the researcher’s hiring policy of the centre.

At present, the committee is integrated by Carlos Novo, Celso Cunha, Gabriela Santos-Gomes, Henrique Silveira, Jorge Atouguia, Luís Távora Tavira (Director), Margarida Gaspar de Matos, Paulo Ferrinho and Virgílio E. do Rosário.

Financial and administrative activities are serviced by a full-time SECRETARIAT (2 Technicians), working directly with the Coordinator that also give administrative support to members and collaborators in their research-related activities.

Due to lack of JURIDICAL PERSONALITY, the Centre depends and relies on the Institute of Tropical Medicine (IHMT) for project managements (financial reports), contract publicizing and formalization, as well as some guidelines. Due to lack of reports and advice from the official IHMT internal evaluation committee, the Centre proposed its own INTERNAL EVALUATION PANEL, to be deployed in the 2008’s internal evaluation [proposed for every two years in the initial proposal to FCT].

Following the constitution of the INTERNAL EVALUATION PANEL, the first evaluation program is scheduled for early 2009 (January-March), based on the 2005-2008 three-year period report of the LA. The panel is integrated by Prof. Ilda Sanches – Centro de Recursos Microbiológicos; FCT da UNL, Portugal, Prof. Dolores Bargues, Faculdade de Farmácia, Univ. Valência, Spain, Prof. Salvatore Rubino, Dip. di Scienze Biomediche, Univ. Sassari, Italy, Prof. Hazel Dockrell, London School of Tropical Medicine, England, Prof. Mário Fresta; Faculdade de Medicina da Univ. Agostinho Neto, Angola, Prof. Wim van Lerberghe, Health Systems and Services, WHO Geneva.

Please refer to http://cmdtla.org  for further details.

Management Structure Diagram:

cmdt_governance_small

Funding:

Researchers Hired under LA Contract:

• João Pedro Soares da Silva Pinto (Start Date: 15-05-2006)  
• Ana Paula Martins Reis Arez (Start Date: 01-03-2007)
• Sónia Chavarria Alves Ferreira Centeno Lima (Start Date: 01-03-2007)

Technical Personnel Hired under LA Contract:

• Ana Catarina Rodrigues Alves (Start Date: 15-01-2007)
• Celeste Rosalina Pereira de Figueiredo (Start Date: 01-04-2006)

Research Lines

• Research in Biomedical Sciences (Reference: RL-HESC-750018-18)
• Cooperation for Development (Reference: RL-HESC-750018-19)
• Advanced Training (Reference: RL-HESC-750018-20) 
• R&D Networks (Reference: RL-HESC-750018-21)

Research Groups

• Clinical Studies (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3136) | PI: Jorge Luis Marques da Silva Atouguia)
• Parasitology (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3137) | PI: Virgilio Estolio do Rosario)
• Public Health (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3138 | PI: Gilles Dussault)
• Health Education (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3139 | PI: Maria Margarida Nunes Gaspar de Matos)
• Virology (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3140| PI: Celso Vladimiro Ferreira de Abreu Cunha)
• Biotechnology (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3141| PI: Carlos Manuel Mendes Novo)

Internal Services and Resources

SHARING OTHER RESOURCES WITHIN LA:

The LA maintains sharing policy of equipment and laboratories, as well as a common acquisition strategy, for equipment and some supplies. The centre also provides for administrative support to its members, including project submission services, project support and seed money, management services and postgraduate program support. Courses with mixed themes are routinely organized.

Within the LA, an effective policy of equipment sharing has long been established. This includes a common acquisition strategy, both for heavy and small equipment, as well as shared utilization. Although decentralized in nature, common consumables are also included in the acquisition policy of the centre.

SHARING OTHER RESOURCES BETWEEN LA’S

Extending this sharing philosophy, the centre has working agreements with other R&D units and LA’s, involving equipment acquisition and sharing, joint project submission and management and scientist’s exchange.

Major exchanges take place mostly with IPATIMUP, IBMC, ITQB, University of Algarve, on discussion of RD activities and courses. Some workshops abroad include other LA’s staff.

This collaborative framework is reflected in several trans-LA research projects, as well as in our list of effective collaborators coming from other LA’s, generally implying the existence of common and complementary research lines.

SHARING RESOURCES BETWEEN OTHER NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION STRUCTURES

Resources have been used by a number of institutions abroad, mainly in Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Argentina, the Sudan or other countries with whom PhD and MSc programmes or research training, takes place, in a number of different areas. The interaction with Spain and Portuguese speaking countries has been strongly implemented.

Our resources are also widely shared with other UNL and non-UNL research groups, at various levels. This is specially done on the basis of cross-participated training programs, involving formal (MSc, PhD programs) and specific training. We wish, in this regard, to emphasize the extension of these resource shares to our partners in Europe, South America and, on a smaller scale, in sub-Saharan Africa, as reflected throughout this report. We must also stress the fact that, in the majority of the situations, this is a consequence of our network-based work program, developed at national and international levels.

It is expected an increase in number of new members, especially within the host institute IHMT after discussions on mutual advantages, at both scientific and economical levels.

External Services and Resources

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SERVICES FOR PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURES:

CMDT has provided services to the Portuguese government whenever requested. These include all areas of research, and members have represented Portugal in the EU Framework Programmes as evaluators or other committees, in ESFRI, as delegates for WHO meetings, or as representatives of the Ministry of Health in a number of international meetings in Portugal and abroad; some initiatives from CMDT were later transformed into wider international organizations such as RIDES CPLP (which includes malaria activities in the Portuguese speaking countries). Participation in international networks in malaria, Leishmaniasis, and migration-related issues, education and health issues in adolescents, are also examples of such activities.

The LA is frequently asked to provide information and data regarding tropical health issues and including migrants and travellers’ health aspects for the Portuguese government bodies. This includes activities supported by CMDT units, as is the case of clinical and laboratory services in tropical health. Despite not being its special functions, counselling in biological emergency situations has been asked and provided by the LA.

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SERVICES FOR OTHER GOVERNMENTS:

Intense collaboration has been developed with African governmental structures, mostly with Portuguese-speaking countries, involving consultancy and program design, namely in health services programming and delivery; health human resources; capacity building and advanced training. This is reflected in specific groups report and results in sustainable work relationships with those governments.

Ongoing programs in capacity building of Angolan health structures, as well as a similar starting program with Mozambique should be highlighted. Smaller-scale technical collaboration is maintained with Cabo-Verde, Guinea-Bissau and S. Tomé e Príncipe.

Support to the US Portugal foundation for the organization of meetings on malaria or interaction with malaria control programmes in Sao Tome (US Navy) took place. Support for workshops in Spain or Brazil at their request was given.

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SERVICES FOR INSTITUTIONS AND COMMUNITY:

Services in tropical health issues for institutions and corporations are delivered in a permanent manner. This includes a wide range of services, from pure technical services (e.g. risk assessment, individual or collective prevention measures) to the implementation of tailored services (e.g. animal manipulation courses, malaria management courses) or program-related services (e.g. entomological impact of new urbanization).

Finally, CMDT members and units support medical services in tropical health, including clinical consultation, laboratory services, traveller’s health and migrant medicine. These are public available services, with specific components offered on the basis of special arrangements, namely with Hospitals, NGO’s and other organizations working in the tropical areas.

Networking Actions

Networking constitutes a major objective of the LA in order to reduce duplication of activities, enlarge collaborative work and potentiate thematic RD groups within the main areas of activity. At NATIONAL LEVEL, the LA has a leading role in several specific technical networks (Malaria, Migrant’s health, Traveller’s health, Leishmaniasis, Proteomics). CMDT has often been requested by outsiders (USA, France) to help in identifying specialists in the area of tropical health in Portugal, due to existing networks. Which include the main RD institutions in Portugal, or NGO’s, civil associations and special population-based organizations (e.g. migrants and refugees). Most network agreements aim at specific fields of research and evolve student and scientist’s exchange, cross-participation in global projects, equipment sharing and training programs.

CMDT groups integrate over 20 INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS in various fields of research and described elsewhere. We wish to highlight in this section two networks that have been recently implemented by CMDT and are now an important instrument of our activities.

RIDES: Network of Portuguese Speaking Researchers is a formal network founded in March 2006, in Brazil, led by Angola, Brazil and Portugal (CMDT-LA). The network was joined by Portuguese speaking scientists working in Tropical Health Research and was complemented by the implementation of an on-line bibliographic platform and a PhD program (see PROCAPS) for African students at CMDT-LA. Several training actions in African countries and workshops and seminars were deployed since 2006 under this network’s activities.

IBERIAN PLATFORM FOR MALARIA was constituted in 2007 and includes more than 60 scientists from Portugal and Spain, covering all major aspects of malaria research. This network will focus in four main types of activity: Cooperation, Capacity building, Mobility & Information dissemination.

For extensive network description, please refer to: http://cmdtla.org/networks.html

Training Activities 

UNDERGRADUATE: CMDT is dedicated to postgraduate training. Nevertheless, there is a permanent presence of trainees at end-training stages of their undergraduate programs, mainly in medical and laboratory-related disciplines, including Erasmus and Leonardo EU programs. Members act as teachers in several undergraduate courses at UNL and affiliates, namely UNL Faculty of Medical Sciences, ESTESL, UA, etc.

POSTGRADUATE: At the postgraduate level, the LA has intense activity, offering and participating in

• Short-term SPECIFIC COURSES in Molecular Biology, Tropical Medicine, Animal Models, included in some group reports.
• Postgraduate REGULAR COURSES AT IHMT in Clinical Tropical Medicine, Parasitology, Public Health modules, Molecular Biology.
• MASTER COURSES in Health & Development, Tropical Health, Biomedical Sciences.
• PHD PROGRAMS. Regular PhD programs at IHMT: Tropical Medicine, Public Health, Biomedical Sciences. Collaboration in third-party PhD courses in Portugal (GABA, FCM) and abroad (France, Italy, Spain). An Erasmus Mundus program was submitted to the EU in 2008.
• Furthermore, CMDT is committed to North-South TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER activities, with the correspondent training activities. This is regularly made in Africa, within our partnership’s agreements and mostly using the field stations described elsewhere in this report. Capacity building training actions included Angola, Brazil, Cabo-Verde, Guinea-Bissau, S. Tomé e Príncipe and Mozambique.

Outreach/Science and Society

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

CMDT and its members maintain a constant flow of information on tropical and emerging diseases epidemiology and research, using regular press channels and an interactive web portal and newsletter. Web based communication is being used as the main channel of information dissemination among members and civil society. The LA maintains contact with the media and participates in science dissemination activities (e.g. EU Researcher’s Night, interviews, TV programs, etc).

Targeting young student population, we maintain, for more over 10 years, Secondary (High) School agreements, resulting in several ”scientific initiation” actions e.g. project studies in biology, seminars, “a week with my scientist” etc.). This culminates in small individual research projects made by secondary school students, under the orientation of an LA’s scientist, as part of their school curriculum. Final works are presented by the students at CMDT in an open 2 day event,

CMDT is, from its beginning, an active and committed protagonist of the “Ciência Viva” Program led by FCT. This implies opening the LA to schools and CMDT innovated in several activities, and in one opportunity 4 young African students participated in the program, having the opportunity to compare facilities for studying, with the support of a NGO.

Health education is also an important part of the LA’s communication with the civil society. This occurs as a result of research projects, as is the case in most of actions of the Health & Education research group, but also in the context of our relationship with NGO’s and Migrant and Refugee’s populations and associations. Formal courses and informal Q&A sessions are frequently delivered on-location for these types of structures.

Organization of International Events

2005

• International Course "Molecular tools applied to health and environmental studies", at Faculty of Veterinary the University Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique.

• Sexually transmitted infections, HIV, gender and violence. With STD Unit and the British Council. Lisbon

2006 to 2008

• Workshops in Latin America under Alcuehealth (5 workshops in Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador and Argentina).
• Three Meetings on Tropical Medicine in collaboration with Brazil (I, II and III Meetings on Tropical Medicine of CPLP, Brazil, 2006/7/8). Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine.

2006

• International Course “Methodologies of Research using molecular biology tools” at the National Institute of Health, Luanda, Angola.
• Seminar on Malaria Therapeutics, with Portuguese speaking countries representatives. Lisbon.
• Workshop “Insecticide resistance in malaria vectors”. Held at the National Institute of Health, Luanda, Angola.

2007

• “Teaching and Research Methods for the user of Tropical and Infectious Diseases Laboratory” at the postgraduate program at Tropical Medicine Amazon Foundation, University of Amazonas, Brazil.
• “Workshop on Leishmaniasis Therapeutics", CMDT/IHMT, Lisbon.
• 25th Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases. Porto.
• 8th TropNetEurop Workshop. Lisbon
• Iberian Platform for Malaria Congress and Foundation Meeting, with 34 research groups from Portugal and Spain, Lisbon.
• Workshop & Steering Committee Meeting of the European Network for the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Europe and Beyond (EN-HERA!) Lisbon.
• Workshop on Microsatellite analysis. Lisbon
• Annual meeting of HBSC/WHO, Oeiras, Portugal.

Final sumary

IN RESEARCH IN BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES, aimed at infectious tropical diseases, the LA consolidated research areas (e.g. Malaria, Leishmaniasis, Trypanosomiasis) under some stability and was enriched with new researchers, namely from the Ciência PhD programme. Expansion into new areas, mainly in animal diseases or in environmental changes/global warming was achieved. A number of trainees at CMDT have also initiated their own groups in these areas elsewhere.

IN COOPERATION FOR DEVELOPMENT, the LA was able to develop sustainable technical and scientific capacity building in endemic areas, including the establishment of field stations in Africa, and use it to develop technology transference activities, post-graduate training, support to governmental structures and programs. CMDT also maintains a strong and visible relationship with the scientific and general community, including dissemination of information, including web-based information, documents’ archive and participation in Ciência Viva and ABACO programs of the FCT. Clinical and laboratory-based community services have a high profile at the Portuguese and international level.

IN ADVANCED TRAINING, we continue to develop participation in special end-graduation programs (Erasmus, Da Vinci) and maintain regular postgraduate courses, Masters and PhD programs. Furthermore, CMDT is committed to capacity building training actions in (for) endemic countries, including on-site tailored training of health human resources, practical courses, seminars and workshops and special programs for African human resources at IHMT.

IN NETWORKING AND INTERNATIONALIZATION, we continued to lead and integrate national, regional and international sustainable networks. A good level of improvement was achieved in promoting human resources capacities, sharing of equipment and technology, as well as scientist’s mobility. In this regard, we should emphasize our leading role in regional/thematic (European, Iberian, CPLP) research activities that enabled North-South technology transference, especially regarding African and South American partners.

With respect to its overall aims in research/services/activities, and besides “pure” research group specific scientific objectives, CMDT’s future global objectives are common to its range of activities/services and can be summarized as follows:

1. Consolidation of the “core-business” IDENTITY around “Tropical Health”; as a fundamental tool to define strategic positioning in the research spectrum.
2. Optimization of RESEARCH GROUPS, implementing better interaction, maximizing cross-group integration of activities and offering major support to new researchers, especially in relation to PhD hiring calls).
3. Reinforcement of the MANAGEMENT and administrative capacity, specially targeting project management, in order to improve the success rate of submitted international projects, e.g. 7thFP EU projects.
4. Consolidation of the FIELD STATIONS in Africa and correlated programs as an important generator of transnational research and sustainable cooperation, an institutionally defined competence of the centre.
5. Strategic investment on already established NETWORKS (PIM, RIDES, etc) with major input on postgraduate training, mobility, resource sharing and transnational activities.

6. Pursuit of previous efforts for COLLABORATIVE POLICY at national and international level, as a mean of structural strengthening and growth of the LA.

7. Development of RD activities with SME´S through UTPAM, within the Biotechnology group (ex-INETI campus)

Future vision of the LA

Our overall future vision is based in an approved strategy that includes the objectives stated in 9.1 coupled with the key definition of the LA [Tropical] [Health] [Biomedical] [Cooperation] [Development].

The LA will have [TROPICAL HEALTH] as the main target of its activities, including research and services, being [Biomedical] research on tropical and endemic diseases the main technical instrument.

A strong link to GOVERNMENTAL MISSIONS related to [Cooperation] will be maintained, with a broad understanding of cooperation as a linking activity to the South (Africa and South America as primary partners).

COOPERATION for [Development] will embody all activities, supported by a strong and sustainable network based in North-South partnerships and including field workstations.

At the institutional and national levels, despite major ongoing changes in the institutional framework (Bologna reform, statutory changes at ministry and university level), CMDT will be able to build on previous STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS to include in its project some research groups. This is the case of some other UNL units, in and out of IHMT, either incorporated in the LA or trough special arrangements. This is the case of some UNL units, in and out of IHMT, either incorporated in the LA or trough special arrangements.

A “triangulated” strategy based in EUROPE-SOUTH AMERICA-AFRICA strategic partnerships will continue to be used as an essential tool for internationalization, as is the case of the Portugal-Brazil-Angola leadership in RIDES, coupled with Portugal-Spain partnership in Malaria Iberian Platform, with already visible results.

Training

CMDT will maintain its training activities in FOUR MAJOR DIVISIONS: 1) Tailored short and medium-term on-location courses dedicated to cooperation activities; mainly in Africa and Brazil; 2) Postgraduate, MSc and PhD programs at IHMT/UNL; 3) PhD programs at national level, in collaboration with other LA’s and Universities; 4) International PhD programs.

Major efforts are now being made, regarding points 3 and 4, based upon the conviction that competitive PhD programs will inevitably imply COLLABORATIVE AGREEMENTS.

At NATIONAL LEVEL, we are negotiating the integration of two LA-originated PhD programs in the Biosciences field, in a formal way, i.e. sharing not only the modules but also the awarding of titles from our university. Present collaborations with third-party PhD programs will be maintained.

At INTERNATIONAL LEVEL, a formal proposal for an Erasmus Mundus PhD program preparation was submitted in early 2008 to EU funding, in collaboration with Instituto Carlos III (Spain), University of Limoges (France), University of Sardinia (Italy), University of Luanda (Angola) and University of Maputo (Mozambique).

Research Line Information (RL-HESC-750018-18)

Designation: Research in Biomedical Sciences

Principal Investigator: Luís Alfredo Pires de Távora Tavira

Research Area: Health Sciences

General Objectives:

Biomedical Research is the core-area of activity of the Centre. The proposed objectives for this area were defined, in the initial proposition of the LA, as RESEARCH IMPLEMENTATION IN INFECTIOUS TROPICAL DISEASES (microbial and parasitic) with an emphasis in neglected and poverty diseases, both endemic and non-endemic. The FIELDS OF STUDY included i) Clinical sciences (diagnosis, clinical and therapeutics), ii) molecular epidemiology and population genetics, iii) Animal models, iv) Drug and insecticide resistance, v) Functional proteomics and genomics, vi) Public health and biostatistics. Also included was support for cryopreservation banks for strains and DNA.

These objectives were reshaped to accommodate the natural evolution of the LA structure, resulting in a redefinition of the research objectives in [TROPICAL HEALTH] and major divisions that originated the RESEARCH GROUPS working in Clinical Studies, Parasitology, Public Health, Health Education, Virology and Biotechnology.

Aiming at maximum competitiveness and quality of research, the groups use all the techniques available at CMDT and partners in a transversal way. The establishment of cross-group research lines is the main strategic functional objective of our activity of Biomedical Research.

Major Achievements:

The volume of outputs of this activity is detailed in each research group’s “achievements” description. Overall, we wish to highlight the performances in the following aspects, all of them established as international level areas, as reflected by the outputs, internationalization, networking capacity, fund raising capacity and structural importance to the LA:

• HEALTH SYSTEMS, a major player in international consultancy and research projects for national and foreign governments, coupled with important training capacity, led by the Health Systems unit.
• HEALTH EDUCATION studies led by the FMH group, with important achievements and networking at European level, and sustained field work in Angola and with corporate partners.
• MIGRANT AND REFUGEE’S HEALTH, a collaborative research theme initiated by the Clinical Unit, now a major government, Portuguese Refugee Council and European Networks partner.
• AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS, a long and sustained area of research, participated by several research groups and ranging from animal models to clinical field research, diagnostic devices and proteomics. This includes ANIMAL AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS, a recent area of research, mainly based on UTPAM/INETI, initiated by a 6 FP program and developed trough mixed PhD fellowship grants
• MALARIA, an all-groups shared theme, (from epidemiology to clinical and Parasitology aspects) with major impact in the LA’s performance and an excellent international network involving almost every aspect of research in the field.
• LEISHMANIA, which is a high-output area, with special links to South America research groups and extensive work in immunologic aspects of disease.
• VECTOR POPULATION GENETICS, a young but already prominent area of activity, engaged in major international projects and supporting vector-transmitted diseases research of all groups.
• DRUG AND INSECTICIDE RESISTANCE studies, a disseminated collaborative area of research, from malaria to Trypanosomiasis, HIV, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis.
• HEPATITIS D, as a relatively new basic research line with important collaborations in the USA and extensive work on molecular biology aspects of the disease.
• HIV research is performed by a well established group with important studies concerning drug resistance and molecular epidemiology of the virus.

Research Groups

Clinical Studies ·    (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3136 | PI: Jorge Luis Marques da Silva Atouguia)

Parasitology ·    (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3137 | PI: Virgilio Estolio do Rosario)

Public Health ·    (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3138 | PI: Gilles Dussault)

Health Education ·    (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3139 PI: Maria Margarida Nunes Gaspar de Matos)

Virology ·    (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3140 | PI: Celso Vladimiro Ferreira de Abreu Cunha)

Biotechnology ·    (Reference: RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3141 | PI: Carlos Manuel Mendes Novo)

Research Line Output

Collaborative Publications in peer review Journals

1. Pimentel S, Nogueira F et al. 2006. Detection of atovaquone-proguanil resistance conferring mutations in Plasmodium falciparum cytochrome b gene in Luanda, Angola. Malar J. 5:30. [IF=2.47;NC= 6 ]
2. Rodes, B., Toro, C., Sheldon, et al. (2006) High rate of proV47A selection in HIV-2 patients failing lopinavir-based HAART. AIDS. 2006 Jan 2;20(1):127-9. [IF=5.84; NC=13]
3. Abrantes P, Lopes LF, Rosário VE, et al. Effect of chloroquine on the expression of genes involved in the mosquito immune response to Plasmodium infection. Insect Biochem. Mol. Biol. (2005) 35: 1124-1132. [IF=2.827;NC=3]
4. Gomes-Pereira S, Rodrigues OR, Santos-Gomes GM. Dynamics of CD62L/CD45RB CD4(+) and CD8(+) lymphocyte subsets in hepatic and splenic tissues during murine visceral leishmaniasis. Immunol. Lett. (2004) 95: 63-70. [IF=2.628;NC=6]
5. Gomes-Pereira S, Roos Rodrigues O, Rolão N, et al. Hepatic cellular immune responses in mice with “cure” and “non-cure” phenotype to Leishmania infantum  production. FEMS Immunol. Med.binfection: importance of CD8+ T cells and TGF- Microbiol. (2004) 41: 59-68. [IF=1.814;NC=16]
6. Hunt P, Afonso A, Creasey A, et al. Gene encoding a deubiquitinating enzyme is mutated in artesunate- and chloroquine-resistant rodent malaria parasites. Mol. Microbiol. (2007) 65: 27-40. [IF=5.462;NC=7]
7. Green, A., Collins, C., Stefanini, A et al (2007). The role of strategic health planning processes in the development of health care reform policies: a comparative study of Eriteia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Int J Health Plan Mgmt; 22: 113-131
8. Dias, S., Matos, M.G., Gonçalves, A. (2005). Preventing HIV transmission in adolescents: an analysis of the Portuguese Data from health Behaviour School-aged Children Study and focus groups. European Journal of Public Health, 15 (3), 300-304. (IF=1.910; nº C= 1)
9. Palma AC, Araujo F, Duque V, Borges F, et al; on behalf of the Portuguese SPREAD Network. Molecular epidemiology and prevalence of drug resistance-associated mutations in newly diagnosed HIV-1 patients in Portugal. Infect Genet Evol. 7 (2007) 391 – 398 (IF: 2.4; NC: 3)
10. Marcelino, J.M., Barroso, H., Gonçalves, F., et al. (2006) Use of a new Dual-Antigen Enzyme-Immunosorbent Assay to detect and characterize the Human Antibody Response to the Human Immunodeficiency virus type 2 envelope gp125 and gp36 glycoproteins. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 44, 607-611. (IF 3.445; NC=)

Collaborative Other Publications

1. Abecasis A, Paraskevis D, Epalanga M, Fonseca M, Burity F, Bartolomeu J, Carvalho AP, Gomes P, Vandamme AM, Camacho RJ. HIV-1 genetic variants circulation in the North of Angola. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 5 (3), 231–237, 2005 (IF: 2.4)
2. Alves J, Roque AL, Cravo P, Valdez T, Jelinek T, Rosário VE, Arez AP. Epidemiological characterization of Plasmodium falciparum in the Republic of Cabo Verde: implications for potential large-scale re-emergence of malaria. Malar J. (2006) 21: 32. [IF=2.473;NC=3]
3. Maia C, Rolão N, Nunes M, Gonçalves L, Campino L. Infectivity of five different types of macrophages by Leishmania infantum. Acta Tropica (2007) 103: 150-155. [IF=2.00;NC=1]
4. Pinto J, Donnelly MJ, Sousa CA, Malta-Vacas J, Gil V, Ferreira C, Petrarca V, Rosário VE, Charlwood JD. An island within an island: genetic differentiation of Anopheles gambiae in São Tomé, West Africa, and its relevance to malaria vector control. Heredity (2003) 91: 407-414. [IF=4.065;NC=13]
5. Ferrinho, P., Biscaia, A. Fronteira, I., Hipólito, F., Dussault, G., (2007). Multiple Employment in the Health Sector in Portugal, Cahiers de Sociologie et Démographie médicales, vol.47 (3): 329-344.
6. Sousa F Jr, Schwalbach J, Adam Y, Gonçalves L, Ferrinho P. (2007). The training and expectations of medical students in Mozambique. Human Resources for Health, 5:11. (unofficial IF= 1.43)
7. Matos, M.G., Barret, P., Dadds, M. & Shortt, A. (2003). Anxiety, depression and peer relationships during adolescence: Results from the Portuguese national health behaviour in school-aged children survey. European Journal of Psychology of Education, Vol. 18 (1), 3-14. (IF:N/A)
8. Domingues D, nogueira F, Tavira L, Camacho R, Exposto F. (2006). Mycoplasma fermentans and Mycoplasma penetrans in patients infected with HIV 1 and/or HIV 2 from a Portuguese hospital. International Journal of STD & AIDS 17: 26-26 Suppl.
9. J. Vercauteren, K. Deforche, K. Theys, M. Debruyne, J.L. Duque, S. Peres, A.P. Carvalho , K.Mansinho, A.-M. Vandamme, RJ. Camacho: The incidence of multidrug and full class resistance in HIV-1 infected patients is decreasing overtime (2001-2006) in Portugal. Retrovirology, 2008 5:12 (IF: 4.0; NC: 0)
10. Ravel C, Cortes S, Pratlong F, Morio F, Dedet JP, Campino L. First report of genetic hybrids between two very divergent Leishmania species: L. infantum and L. major. International Journal for Parasitology (2006) 36: 1383-1388. [IF=3.392;NC=6]

Master and PhD thesis completed

PHD

1. Ana Júlia Afonso “Studies on the genetics of artemisinin resistance in malaria”.
2. Celeste Simões, “Risk behaviours in adolescence – Study of risk and protective factors for health in school-aged adolescents with different life trajectories in their significant life contexts”
3. Dinora Lopes - “Antimalarial Resistance in P. falciparum: interaction between the genes pfcrt and pfmdr1”.
4. Fátima Nogueira “Studies on malária, with special relevance to the biology of multidrug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum”
5. Jorge Seixas. Investigations on the Encephalopatic syndrome during melarsoprol treatment of Human African Trypanosomiasis.
6. Marcelo Sousa Silva. DNA vaccine: the experimental immunization model against African Trypanosomiasis.
7. Nuno Miguel Rolão – “Characterization of organ-related responses to Leishmania infantum infection in the murine model”
8. Patricia Abrantes ”Effect of chloroquine on the modulation of mosquito vector response to Plasmodium infection”.
9. Pedro Lourenço. .Pesquisa de Hidratase de nitrilo em microrganismos. Caracterização genética do metabolismo de nitrilos em Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
10. Ricardo Rosa – “Study of the immune response induced by soluble antigens secreted by Leishmania infantum”.
11. Rosa Teodósio Rosa Teodósio – "Travel Medicine in the Lisbon SubRegion”
12. Sandra Gomes-Pereira – “Infection by Leishmania infantum in murine model: Influence of H-2 haplotype on cellular immune response”

MSC

1. Susana Veloso. Determinants of Physical Activity and leisure in adolescents from Oeiras
2. António Silva. Resilience and emotional intelligence
3. Gina Tomé. Depression, Academic Achievement and Adolescents Coping Strategies
4. Marta Reis. Sexual health promotion in Portuguese students
5. Lúcia Ramiro. Sexual education knowledge, attitudes and sexual behaviours in Portuguese adolescents
6. Joana de Abreu Carvalho. Direccionamento de antigénios no desenvolvimento de vacinas de DNA contra a tripanossomose africana.
7. Andreia Cruz. Identificação e clonagem dos genes implicados na resistência ao tributiestanho em bactérias marinhas.
8. Cynthia de Oliveira Ferreira “Análise do perfil genético de populações de P.vivax e P.falciparum do Estado do Amazonas”.
9. Dusan Djokovic “Development of an assay for high throughput antimalarial drug screening in vivo”
10. Juliana Miranda - “Estudo de determinantes genéticos de susceptibilidade/resistência em crianças com diferentes níveis clínicos de gravidade de malária (Luanda, Angola)”.
11. Cristina Mendes - "Associação entre as populações parasitárias de Plasmodium sp. e polimorfismos eritrocitários – drepanocitose e deficiência em glucose-6-fosfato desidrogenase - em Angola".
12. Yolanda Kanganje (Angola): “Knockdown insecticide resistance in Anopheles gambiae Giles, 1902 populations from Angola, Southern Africa”.
13. Rui Costa e Silva. “Genetic characterisation of Anopheles gambiae in Gabon: gene dispersal and insecticide resistance”.
14. Ana Sofia Figueiredo. “Estudos de resistência a antifolatos em Plasmodium falciparum”.
15. Afonso de Almeida -“Genetic characterisation of P. falciparum from the Huila province, Angola”.
16. Joana Alves - “Determination of residual foci of P. falciparum in Santiago, Cabo Verde”.
17. Patrícia Marques – “Estudo das infecções simples e mistas por Plasmodium sp. na população humana em duas áreas distintas do Distrito da Manhiça, Moçambique”
18. Carolina Alves – Study of the nuclear import mechanism of the hepatitis delta virus antigen.
19. Marta Mendes – Influence of the HDV genomic and antigenomic RNA expression in human liver cells proteome.

Future Research

Although the research groups constituting the LA have their own institutional existence, a 10 year (5+5) horizon for further development of this model is admitted in our future plans. In what concerns biomedical research thematic area, we base our future plans in the following analysis:

STRENGTHS

• The LA has established research groups in key-areas (please see main achievements and http://cmdtla.org), with sustainable performance indicators.
• A significant proportion of the group’s researchers are constituted by young scientists with an already significant track-record, many with previous international experience, partially as a result of the competitive hiring policy of the LA.
• Project approval rates allow us to foresee funding self-sufficiency for the mid-term period. Submission rates have been improving steadily.
• Virtually every group has strong national and international network connections, allowing for the integration of large research consortia and projects.
• A light governance structure and decision tree, allows for flexibility in resource allocation and speed in decision making, namely when a short response time is needed.

WEAKNESSES

• Institutional background results in overburden of bureaucracy and some administrative insufficiencies, the LA not being able to overcome with own resources. This includes the lack of juridical personality and is especially critical in the context of participation in international activities (consortia, networks, EU & projects).
• Partial lack of penetration / capacity / human resources in important areas of tropical diseases (e.g. tuberculosis), which would qualify the LA for integration of more international activities.
• Relatively short technical and administrative staff body, as compared to researcher’s number. This has an impact on the maintenance and routine activities of laboratories and animal house, as well as daily management of the LA’s research activities.

OPPORTUNITIES

• National and EU funded hiring programs, including “Ciência” program, implemented by FCT, will allow us to reshape and reinforce strategic research areas (e.g. tuberculosis, mathematical models of disease).
• Restructuring of the university and IHMT statutes and practices, if succeeded, may give us some opportunities to establish more flexible procedures, namely regarding scientific management of projects and related operations. This includes, at IHMT level, the use of a non-profit organization structure to outsource some support activities and hiring.
• Our strong international connections in key-areas of biomedical research in tropical health, coupled with better knowledge of EU and International funding processes, will permit us to develop an aggressive policy towards leadership / integration in international research consortia.
• Active development of a CPLP scientific background, in which the LA pioneered, if actively exploited, can put us in a key position for North-South research collaboration activities, as well as consolidate our research field stations with African partners. In this regard, Brazil represents a preferential partner.

THREATS

• Even in a context of a clear framework for the associated laboratory figure, within the university, time-limited development of activities is a constraint.
• The changing institutional background (different statutory governance of university and host institutions) can result in externally-induced instability of research workgroups, namely due to institutional policy changes and pressures
• Over time, CMDT groups have generated a young wave of researchers in its fields of expertise ( Malaria, Leishmaniasis, Trypanosomiasis, HIV, etc... ) who are now major players and competitors for funding. Integration of these groups trough networking does not eliminate the fact that increased competition for funding is a reality. Furthermore, last decade concentration of large funding systems in endemic and tropical diseases has attracted major institutional players to the area of tropical health.

Future Plans

Our future plans concerning Research in Biomedical Sciences will follow the main axis of our strategic plan:

1. RESEARCH GROUP ORGANIZATION, on the basis of core-activities in Tropical Health related research. This means to re-arrange the functional organization of the groups, together with the amplification of trans-group projects and activities, to be carried out under the coordination responsibility.
2. BROADENING OF RESEARCH AREAS AND INTEGRATION OF NEW GROUPS are the second major axis of near future objectives for this research area. There are ongoing negotiations with groups from the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Sciences-UL, IPATIMUP, Faculty of Science and Technology-UNL, National School of Public Health, National Institute of Health and internal research groups at IHMT. This will lead to a series of alliances and strategic positioning of the LA as a central convergence point for tropical health research activities in Portugal, and should be concluded before the end of 2008.
3. Identified PRIORITY DISEASES to enhance will be tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Identified PRIORITY INSTRUMENTS to be reinforced will be public health and epidemiology, translational clinical research tools and laboratory diagnostic & biological device’s prototype development.
4. DIVERSIFICATION OF FUNDING SOURCES is also crucial for research. Special partnerships with private and public institutions have been actively pursued and will be greatly implemented in the next period, directly with the LA and trough the newly created non-profit organization at IHMT. The later will allow the LA to access mecenate funds and lower its dependence on governmental funds.
5. Two major CORRELATED FACTORS need to be addressed simultaneously, in order to implement the above stated: 1) Re-equipment of the main facilities at IHMT, mainly in the laboratory area and animal house, and 2) Management capacity reinforcement of the LA, with human resources enhancement at administrative and technical level.

Research Line Information (RL-HESC-750018-20)

Designation: Advanced Training

Principal Investigator: Luís Alfredo Pires de Távora Tavira

Research Area: Health Sciences

General Objectives:

An essential area of work of the LA, this is intimately related to the other thematic areas (biomedical research, cooperation for development and networking). The main objectives of this area concern the following training lines:

GRADUATE TRAINING

• Research initiation experience for graduates
• Graduation thesis orientation
• Special graduation programs (Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci)

POSTGRADUATE TRAINING (at IHMT and in developing countries)

• Postgraduate courses
• Masters Programs
• PhD Programs

Furthermore, CMDT is committed to capacity building training actions in (for) endemic countries, including on-site informal training (hospitals, faculties) of health human resources, practical courses, seminars and workshops and special programs for African human resources at IHMT.

Major Achievements:

• Intensive COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES with secondary schools, started under the auspices of Ciência Viva program, but not limited to it. The number of graduation thesis has grown exponentially and arrangements had to be made for institutional reasons, i.e. the physical infrastructure at IHMT will not be able to support larger numbers of students.
• Increased numbers of LEONARDO and ERASMUS requests and training actions have been developed at CMDT, directly and trough special dedicated international agencies.
• There was a significant number of POST-GRADUATE COURSES IN TROPICAL COUNTRIES (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique), developed by CMDT, as well as African and South American students in European courses, via CMDT. Informal training actions of these kind of students in CMDT’s premises take place regularly, on the grounds of collaborations with research groups from the countries of origin.
• There was an increased number of MASTERS AT IHMT, with strong participation of LA groups, as well as an increased number of African students in MSc programs, via CMDT. The same was true for African and Brazilian students in PHD PROGRAMS.
• A special program with Angola, Procaps, involving PhD tailored program, includes now 11 students, having started in 2006 with funding from CMDT, the Portuguese Institute for Cooperation (IPAD) and the Angolan Ministry of Health.

Research Groups

Future Research

Other Information

In what concerns Advanced Training thematic area, we base our future plans in the following analysis:

STRENGTHS

CMDT has now strong and diversified human resources and research projects, enabling already established post-graduation courses, as well as launching of new training programs in tropical health related fields

CMDT’s networking is allowing progressive participation in trans-institutional (national, European and North-South) training programs. This includes growing penetration in Leonardo and Erasmus actions.

In the area of short-term courses, a significant number of actions already take place on African countries and the basis for sustainable development of joint programs is solid. We also expect to be able to award the first joint PhD titles in 2009-2010 in Angola, followed by Mozambique.

Cumulative experience in Tropical Health related training has guaranteed a steady search form students towards our training actions.

WEAKNESSES

Infrastructures at IHMT need to be adapted to new modular training courses, which is not directly dependent from CMDT’s actions. This includes web and informatics structures, with a significant delay in launching distance learning courses (e-learning).

Production of Portuguese contents is still insufficient to cover requests from CPLP members, despite joint efforts in Portugal and with Brazil and international organizations (WHO).

Despite CMDT’s initiative to review and adapt IHMT master and PhD courses to a modular frame, there is some lack of flexibility, mostly concerning overseas students.

OPPORTUNITIES

School integration initiatives are being deployed at national level, favouring early research contact, in which CMDT’s groups have been working for the past 10 years, giving us some lead in this field. Ciência Viva program constitutes the backbone of these actions.

Master and PhD programs at UNL and IHMT are being adapted and will fit to CMDT’s postgraduate training philosophy (modularity), bringing integrated teaching closer to our group’s modules.

Formal arrangements have been completed with third countries in Africa, allowing for the establishment of sustainable and diversified postgraduate training programs, as is the case of Procaps.

THREATS

Training funding sources are normally diverse from those for research, implying an extra effort to look for funding, against a background of groups more familiar with research-related application.

Training in African countries is more dependent of European policy issues, with distant decision centres and complex application procedures.

Organic capacity of our host institutions to apply for larger volume funding, as well as their degree of internationalization, is still sub-optimal.

Political instability in southern countries can impair the sustainability of more prolonged training programs (Master, PhD joint programs).

Future Plans

Our future plans for Advanced Training actions include:

1. The reinforcement and development of PERMANENT TOOLS OF INTERACTION with civil society based in Ciência Viva model and supported on already established links with model-schools. In parallel, Leonardo and Erasmus actions will be supported at the LA’s level, whenever possible in multidisciplinary environment.
2. To contribute for the restructuring of the POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMS AT IHMT, on previously described grounds (see above).
3. To maintain the integration of research groups in POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMS AT NATIONAL LEVEL, with emphasis for UNL-based and inter-institutional programs, like GABA and others.
4. Integrate postgraduate European programs, with special target on Erasmus Mundus actions (CMDT applications already submitted with European and African partners), mainly for PhD programs.
5. Regarding CPLP AND AFRICA PROGRAMS, we will use the present platforms (RIDES, Procaps, and Iberian Platform for Malaria etc...) to leverage two main poles for postgraduate training in Luanda (Angola) and Maputo (Mozambique).
6. CMDT presently negotiates the launching of a joint RESEARCH-BASED PHD PROGRAM, as a full partner of a consortium in the area of Environment and Health. This is due to be proposed for initiate in 2009-2010.

Research Line Information (RL-HESC-750018-19)

Designation: Cooperation for Development

Principal Investigator: Luís Alfredo Pires de Távora Tavira

Research Area: Health Sciences

General Objectives:

The original objectives of this area are:

1. Technical and scientific capacity building in endemic areas; including the development and/or support of research structures and human resources, as well as training programs;
2. Services to community and civil society; including support to the research groups for quality control and standardization of laboratory techniques, development of products / processes for prophylactic, diagnostic or therapeutics, counselling in infection and epidemiological surveillance, health systems etc.
3. Support to Prevention & Control programs, both a national level (health education, adolescent and school behaviour studies, HIV studies) and with southern partners (health systems, endemic diseases)
4. Scientific dissemination of information, including web-based information, a documents’ archive and participation in Ciência Viva and ABACO programs of the FCT

Major Achievements:

CMDT has now two working FIELD-STATIONS, in Angola and Mozambique. In Angola, we established a partnership with the support of the Ministry of Health and its Endemic Diseases Department and involving the National Paediatrics Hospital, National Institute of Health, Institute for Control of Trypanosomiasis and Faculty of Medicine. Cross-link activity with local and international NGO’s and international organizations (WHO, CDC) is permanent. In Mozambique, CMDT established a formal office at the Faculty of Medicine in Maputo, with a local Researcher as representative. This partnership involves the Ministry of Health, National Public Health Institute, Veterinary Faculty and Biotechnology Research Centre. In both cases, extensive capacity building actions took place, both rehabilitating local structures and offering training programs to local human resources. Please see Advanced Training section for more details and/or consult http://cmdt.org.

SERVICES TO COMMUNITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY actions area are documented in each research group’s area, reflecting the scientific interaction of CMDT members. The constitutive units of CMDT continue to offer and are national reference in clinical and laboratory practice in their field of expertise. An outpatient clinic, offering medical consultation and diagnostics to the public, was maintained. Corporate and government consultancy in those areas are an almost permanent solicitation, including counselling in infection and epidemiological surveillance, health systems etc

SUPPORT TO PREVENTION & CONTROL PROGRAMS has been a continuous effort of the Centre. This has been the case at national level (emerging diseases, health education, adolescent and school behaviour studies, sexually transmitted infections) and with southern partners (health systems, endemic diseases, epidemiological surveillance programs in S. Tomé, Angola, Cabo Verde and Mozambique)

SCIENTIFIC DISSEMINATION was maintained through the creation of a web portal (http://cmdtla.org) a bibliographic repository of scientific papers and documents (http://cmdtpt.ihmt.unl.pt ; funded by CPLP) and continuous participation in Ciência Viva’s programs, including African students participation.

Research Groups

Future Research

Other Information

In what concerns Cooperation for Development thematic area, we base our future plans in the following analysis:

STRENGTHS

The LA’s brand name in the cooperation market equals, at least, that of the IHMT, and we are now regarded, by governments and other stakeholders, as reliable cooperation partners.

Field stations in Angola and Mozambique are now established and usable for actions, stable collaboration having been achieved with local authorities.

Interconnection with government prevention and control programs, at national and African level, is now regular. Special relationships with the national health authorities, CPLP and external policy instruments have been established.

The centre’s role, as a dissemination of information pole, is now remarkable, with emphasis on non-formal scientific communication, web-based own and shared platforms and documentation repository.

The Secondary School and civil society networks of CMDT allow for medium-term planned actions with sustainability.

WEAKNESSES

The physical informatics platform still suffers from access constraints (bottlenecks) which prevent the use of high-volume traffic instruments, namely in information dissemination. The centre still has to rely on out-of-IHMT servers to accomplish some of these tasks.

Integration with the cooperation department at IHMT is limited by its own resources, frequently resulting in slow response situations, related to solicitations from foreign partners. At the same time, our own structure dedicated to cooperation issues has a quantitative and qualitative deficit of human resources.

International cooperation instruments, at Portuguese national level, are in a changing process, resulting in some hierarchical confusion, namely when it comes to deployment of health and research cooperation actions.

OPPORTUNITIES

Tropical and emerging diseases, including infectious diseases, are now considered a major global issue and receive enough attention from governments and international organizations.

There is an increasing need for science, research and cooperation information in Portuguese, as well as related activities and Portuguese-speaking countries. CMDT, as a pioneer in this field, has some lead in this regard.

The volume of direct cooperation solicitations to CMDT shows a progressive and steady increase tendency.

THREATS

Channelling and centralization of European cooperation actions can reduce the access to large volume cooperation frameworks, namely in Europe-to-South cooperation.

The number of players in international cooperation, not necessarily tropical health based players, will increase and globalize competition for funds for cooperation-based actions.

Future Plans

1. Our future plans in Cooperation for Development thematic area can be summarized as follows:
2. Development of permanent tools of interaction with civil society, based in Ciência Viva model, defining secondary school’s population as a special target of science information dissemination and building on previous experiences with selected model-schools.
3. Integration / Creation of equipment and information-sharing networks, either resulting from specific FCT programs, or based upon CMDT’s research networks [please se “networking” thematic area and http://www.cmdtla.org]
4. Consolidation of home and field stations, including re-equipment of laboratory and clinical premises at IHMT and special collaborative field stations in Angola and Mozambique.
5. Consolidation of institutional and governmental positions, mainly through an internal policy of collaboration in governmental programs and university strategic integration.
6. Consolidation of the knowledge web-platforms as the main dissemination tool, with emphasis on scientific repository in tropical health and a permanent flux of scientific information.
7. Full development of permanent field stations in Africa

Research Line Information
(RL-HESC-750018-21)

Designation: R&D Networks

Principal Investigator: Luís Alfredo Pires de Távora Tavira

Research Area: Health Sciences

General Objectives:

Networking has been a “trademark” of the LA and supports most of the ongoing activity of our laboratory. The main objectives are

1. to establish national, regional and international sustainable networks
2. to promote human resources, equipment and technology sharing and transference, with emphasis on mobility
3. to translate this into scientific productivity gain and cost optimization.
4. An important secondary objective is to use the networking process itself to leverage all the LA’s capacity to lead and support regional/thematic (European, Iberian and CPLP) research activities and enable North-South technology transference, especially regarding African and South American partners.

Major Achievements:

Networking constitutes one of the pillar objectives of the LA itself and its extensively described in the corresponding section. AT NATIONAL LEVEL, the LA has a leading role in several specific technical networks (Malaria, Migrant’s health, Traveller’s health, Leishmania, Proteomics). These are formal networks that run for some years and, in most cases, linked to equivalent or similar international networks integrated by the LA. Moreover, CMDT has established bilateral network connections with several other Portuguese institutions and laboratories, including groups of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Universidade do Porto, Universidade do Algarve, Universidade de Coimbra, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, etc. These network agreements started in specific fields of research and evolved to more generic aspects of activity, including now student and scientist’s exchange, cross-participation in global projects, equipment sharing and training programs. The networking activity includes non-academic institutions like NGO’s, civil associations and special population-based organizations (e.g. migrants and refugees) that frequently integrate research projects.

CMDT groups integrate more than 20 INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS in various fields of research and described elsewhere in this report. We wish to highlight in this section two networks that have been recently implemented by CMDT and are now an important instrument of our activities.

RIDES: Rede de Investigadores dos Países de Língua Portuguesa is a formal network founded in March 2006, in Brazil, led by Angola, Brazil and Portugal (CMDT-LA). The network was joined by Portuguese speaking scientists working in Tropical Health Research and was complemented by the implementation of an on-line bibliographic platform and a PhD program (see PROCAPS) for African students at CMDT-LA. Several training actions in African countries and workshops and seminars were deployed since 2006 under this network’s activities.

IBERIAN PLATFORM FOR MALARIA was constituted in 2007 and includes more than 60 scientists from Portugal and Spain, covering all major aspects of malaria research. This network will focus in four main types of activity: Cooperation, Capacity building, Mobility & Information dissemination.

For extensive network description, please refer to: http://cmdtla.org/networks.html

Research Groups

Future Research

Other Information

In what concerns networking thematic area, we base our future plans in the following analysis:

STRENGTHS

• Number and diversity of established networks, mainly in central areas of research of the LA
• Indirect outputs of network activities, traduced in biomedical research, postgraduate training, project submission and funding, and scientist exchange
• Regional, European and North-South dimensions of the networks, with emphasis on CPLP and Iberian networks as tools for international projection of CMDT’s activities.
• Access to equipment, facilities and field stations, as a result of sustainable networking activities, long pursued by CMDT.
• Clear definition of networking as a key activity of each CMDT’s group, leading to a cultural proactive attitude of members. This results in many informal networking activities with results reflected in each group’s activities and outputs.

WEAKNESSES

• Occasional lack of capacity to rapidly implement network agreements at institutional level, mainly due to juridical constraints related to the nature of the LA.
• Critical mass insufficiencies, occasionally preventing a more leading role in international networks [management, administrative issues]

OPPORTUNITIES

• The LA is now in good position to act as a North-South leading partner in networking, associated with Spain, Brazil, Angola and the other Portuguese-speaking regions.
• European funded networking programs are favourable, under the 7th Framework Program of EU and CMDT entered a number of consortia applications.

THREATS

• Instability of African partners can jeopardize key networking instruments
• Technology transference and capacity building involve large amounts of funding
• Management and lobbying capacity of CMDT didn’t grow to accommodate the volume of solicitations involved in networking.

Future Plans

1. In NATIONAL NETWORKING activities, the LA aims at maintain and increase leadership position in selected themes, as is the case of Malaria, Leishmania, Trypanosoma and other tropical diseases, Health Systems.
2. In INTERNATIONAL NETWORKING, preferential partners in specific fields will continue to be searched for. Networking actions within the 7th FP of EU program will be preferred.
3. Two REGIONAL NETWORKING instruments [Iberian platform for malaria and CPLP research networks] will continue to represent a key investment at LA’s level, i.e. with strong commitment from the coordination, as these are structurally important platforms.
4. COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMS with Angola, Brazil and Mozambique (Procaps Programs) will continue to be supported, in order to stabilize and enhance the research activity of the African field stations and support the postgraduate training programs taking place locally.
5. INFORMAL NETWORKING consolidation, i.e. individual and research group specific networking activities will continue to be the base of CMDT network activities, thus constituting a prioritized coordination facilitation activity.

Research Group Information (RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3136)

Designation: Clinical Studies

Principal Investigator: Jorge Luis Marques da Silva Atouguia

Location of Group: Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Keywords: Clinical ,Tropical, Diagnosis,Treatment

Funding

Funding sources of our group include the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the Gulbenkian Foundation, Glaxo-Smith-Kline Foundation, the Private Higher Education Institute of Angola, the Ministry of Health of Angola, the WHO Global Fund program, the Mozambican Minister of Science. Funds have also been obtained form WHO-TDR (COST program) and 6th and 7th Framework European Programs, mainly in networking and collaborative research activities.

Group Team

List of Researchers in the Group:

001. Fernando Aires Alves Nunes Ventura ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

002. Jaime Manuel Simões Nina ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

003. Jorge Beirão Almeida Seixas ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

004. Jorge Luis Marques da Silva Atouguia ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

005. Luís Manuel Varandas ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

006. Rosa Maria Figueiredo Teodósio ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

007. Luís Alfredo Pires de Távora Tavira ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

008. Sónia Chavarria Alves Ferreira Centeno Lima ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

009. Marcelo de Sousa da Silva ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/PhD):

001. Duarte Miguel França Teixeira Prazeres ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

002. Gabriel António Amaro Monteiro ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

003. Maria José Borrego ( Cat.: Investigador Principal Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

004. Fernanda Henriques de Jesus Rosa ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

005. Jorge Filipe de Sousa Varanda Preces Ferreira ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

006. Margarida Dias Lima de Faria ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

007. Vítor Manuel Rosado Marques ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/o PhD):

001. Kamal Mansinho ( Cat.: Professor Convidado Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

002. Dacia Alzira de Augusto Correia ( Cat.: Investigador-Coordenador Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

003. José Augusto Gil Martinho Forte ( Cat.: Assistente Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

004. MARIA ASUNCION SOLEDAD GONZALEZ GONZALEZ ( Cat.: Assistente Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

005. Maria Jorge Perinhas Arroz ( Cat.: Assistente Convidado Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

006. Joana da Graça Matias Gomes ( Cat.: Estagiário de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

007. Andreia Sofia Cruz Lança ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

 008. Dulce Maria Pinto Domingues ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

 009. Karina Pires de Sousa ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

 010. Filipa Santana Ferreira ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

Objectives & Achievements

Objectives:

HUMAN AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS (HAT):

Molecular Epidemiology of sleeping sickness: genotyping of the parasites in patients, tsetse and per domestic animals; relationship between disease and genotypes and establishment of a molecular-based disease distribution map.

Tsetse Research: development of an alternative approach to detect trypanosomes in tsetse flies using the entire fly body for DNA extraction and analysis, avoiding on-site fly dissection.

Development of a multiple molecular species-specific diagnostic test for the identification of pathogenic African trypanosomes.

Encephalopathic syndrome (ES) during melarsoprol treatment of HAT: a) prospective case-control clinical study on ES in HAT b) association study between ES and the HLA type.

Chemotherapy of second-stage HAT: evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of drugs.

DNA vaccine approach for African Trypanosomiasis: to develop an immunization process for experimental T. brucei-infection.

Role of metalloproteinases (MP) and complement system (C) in the pathogenesis of Trypanosoma brucei infection; Biochemical characterization of the MPs found in bloodstream forms of T. brucei; Testing of substrates and inhibitors of these enzymes and their interaction with MPs and C.

INTESTINAL PROTOZOA

Epidemiology and genotyping of G. intestinalis in an endemic area and in international travellers and migrants.

Molecular differentiation between E. histolytica and non-pathogenic amoebas in imported cases.

MALARIA

Complement system activation and erythrocyte complement-regulatory receptors in patients infected with Plasmodium falciparum: Five distinct C receptors, erythrocyte asymmetry membrane, soluble complement molecules and pro-inflammatory mediators present in serum in patients infected with P. falciparum to clarify their role in malaria pathogenesis.

Malaria re-emergence: Entomologic studies and malaria knowledge in a malaria re-emergence risk area in Portugal.

MIGRANT HEALTH/TRAVEL MEDICINE

Transmissible diseases in migrants: to characterize sexually transmitted infections and dermatophytic infections.

Characterization of the travellers to the Portuguese Speaking African Countries

Role and quality assessment of travel clinics, general practitioners, pharmacists and travel agents in travel advice.

Main Achievements:

HAT

Tsetse Research: Successful development of a new approach to detect trypanosome DNA in Glossina that uses the entire fly body for DNA extraction and analysis, avoiding the laborious and time-consuming on-site fly dissection, opening new possibilities of obtaining information in countries that do not have experienced entomologists.

ES: Successful acquisition of tools for the improvement of the definition, diagnosis, prevention and management of ES. Establishment of a model for the aetiology and pathogenesis of ES that includes the HLA system. A significant association between HLA and ES was found.

Chemotherapy of second-stage Human African Trypanosomiasis: Review Protocol registered in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

DNA vaccines: Four plasmids DNA encoding target genes from T. brucei were created, characterized and used as DNA vaccine prototypes by injection in mice. Immune response generated and protection assays are on going.

Murine model: We successfully optimized an experimental murine model for HAT using T. b. brucei that opens possibilities to develop other investigation lines in our group.

INTESTINAL PROTOZOAN

The molecular diagnostic techniques for the identification of the protozoa Giardia and Entamoeba were successfully established in our laboratory and form the basis of our future projects.

MALARIA

Baseline studies concerning malaria biological markers in travellers have been published and this is a well established research line, involving three MSc and one PhD ongoing thesis with field work in Angola. Laboratory techniques are now standardized and operational.

MIGRANT HEALTH/TRAVEL MEDICINE

In Transmissible diseases in migrants, two national and 2 international (EU) networks have been integrated by the group and are now running on EU funds. Deep integration with local refugee and migrant organizations, as well as the Portuguese Council for Refugees was achieved. The group launched and maintains a regular migrant medical outpatient clinic at IHMT.

In Travel Medicine, the characterization of the travellers to the Portuguese Speaking African Countries is ongoing. Several publications resulted from this line. The group launched and maintains a regular travel medicine consultation including vaccination at IHMT.

[Information accessed: 01-11-2008 10:57:40 on www.fct.mctes.pt]
[FCT - Avaliação de Laboratórios Associados 2008 | Form locked: False]

Group Productivity

Publications in peer review Journals   

1. Domingues D, Tavira LT, Duarte A, Sanca A, Prieto E, Exposto F. Genital Mycoplasma in women attending a family planning clinic in Guinea-Bissau and their susceptibility to antimicrobial agents. Acta Tropica 2003 Apr 86:1 19-24 [IF= 2.00; NC=8]
2. Gomes P, Abecassis A, Almeida M, Camacho R, Mansinho K. Transmission of HIV-2. Lancet Infect Dis. 2003 Nov; 3(11):683-4. [IF=12.0; NC=7]
3. Lutje V, Seixas J. Chemotherapy of second-stage Human African Trypanosomiasis. (Protocol) Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD006201. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD006201.
4. Muhlberger N, Jelinek T, Gascon J, Probst M, Zoller T, Schunk M, Beran J, Gjorup I, Behrens RH, Clerinx J, Bjorkman A, McWhinney P, Matteelli A, Lopez-Velez R, Bisoffi Z, Hellgren U, Puente S, Schmid ML, Myrvang B, Holthoff-Stich ML, Laferl H, Hatz C, Kollaritsch H, Kapaun A, Knobloch J, Iversen J, Kotlowski A, Malvy DJ, Kern P, Fry G, Siikamaki H, Schulze MH, Soula G, Paul M, Gomez i Prat J, Lehmann V, Bouchaud O, da Cunha S, Atouguia J, Boecken G. (2004). Epidemiology and clinical features of vivax malaria imported to Europe: sentinel surveillance data from TropNetEurop. Malar J. 2004 Mar 8;3(1):5. Times cited: 17 [IF=2.47; NC=17]
5. Pimentel S, Nogueira F, Benchimol C, Quinhentos V, Bom J, Varandas L, do Rosário V, Bernardino L. 2006. Detection of atovaquone-proguanil resistance conferring mutations in Plasmodium falciparum cytochrome b gene in Luanda, Angola. Malar J. 5:30. [IF=2.47;NC= 6 ]
6. Rocha G, Martins A, Gama G, Brandao F, Atouguia J. (2004) Possible cases of sexual and congenital transmission of sleeping sickness. Lancet 2004 Jan 17;363(9404):247. [IF=21.71; NC=28.64]
7. Rodes, B., Toro, C., Sheldon, J.A., Jimenez, V., Mansinho, K., Soriano, V. (2006) High rate of proV47A selection in HIV-2 patients failing lopinavir-based HAART. AIDS. 2006 Jan 2;20(1):127-9. [IF=5.84; NC=13]
8. Tavira LT, Teodósio R, Seixas J, Prieto E, Castro R, Exposto F, Atouguia J (2007). Sexually transmitted infections in an African migrant population in Portugal: a base-line study. J Infect Developing Countries 1(3):326-328. [IF=1.05; IC=2.75]
9. Teodósio R, Gonçalves L, Atouguia J, Imperatori E. 2006. Quality assessment in a travel clinic: a study of travellers’ knowledge about malaria. J Travel Med. 13: 288-293. [IF=1.05;NC=N/A]
10. Teodósio R, Gonçalves L, Imperatori E, Atouguia J. 2006. Pharmacists and travel advice for tropics in Lisbon (Portugal). J Travel Med; 13: 281-287. [IF=1.05; NC=N/A]

Other publications National

BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS

• Infecções sexualmente transmissíveis; Luís Távora Tavira, Jorge Atouguia; Ed. Universidade Aberta, 2006; ISBN 978-972-674-468-9
• Malária. Jorge Seixas e Jorge Atouguia. Lisboa, Ed. Universidade Aberta, 2006, ISBN: 978-972-674-476-4
• Tripanosomose Humana Africana. Jorge Atouguia. Lisboa, Ed. Universidade Aberta, 2005, ISBN: 972-674-458-X

PAPERS

• Dulce Domingues, Filipa Nogueira, Luís Távora Tavira, Filomena Exposto. Micoplasmas. Que papel nas infecções humanas?. Acta Médica Portuguesa 2005; 18:377-384
• Tavira LT, Teodósio R, Seixas J, Prieto E, Castro R, Exposto F, Atouguia J (2007) Infecções sexualmente transmissíveis numa população migrante africana em Portugal: estudo de base resultante do projecto EpiMigra. Revista Migrações 1: 129-139.
• Bonfim I, Rosário A, Nina J, do Rosário VE & R Camacho. 2006. HIV-1 Genetic Diversity in São Tomé e Príncipe (Abstract). X Congresso Português de Parasitologia: P4. Acta Parasitol Port 13:108.
• Suzana David, Clara Portugal, Abílio Antunes, Angela Cardoso, Ana Calado, Vanessa Barros, Luísa Sancho. Identificação molecular pelo método de Spoligotyping de estirpes do complexo Mycobacterium tuberculosis isoladas no Hospital Fernando Fonseca. Rev. Port. Pneumol. X (3): 195-204 (2004).
• Varandas L, Vandunem J, Benchimol C, Quinhentos V, Ferrinho P, Gonçalves L, Bernardino L. 2007. Tratamento efectivo na malária com moderada/alta parasitémia, em crianças, com uma toma diária de quinino em Luanda, Angola. Acta Med Angolana.16:15-20.
• Teodósio R, Gonçalves L, Atouguia J, Imperatori E (2006) Avaliação da qualidade do aconselhamento prestado numa consulta de viajantes. In: Cunha G, Varanda J, eds. Livro de actas da IV Conferência Estatística e Qualidade na Saúde; 2005 November 11-12; Lisboa, Portugal. Lisboa, Portugal: Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, pp 98-103.
• Teodósio R. (2003) Se vai para os trópicos proteja-se. Rev. Vida Boa; 15: 3-5.

Other publications International  

• Domingues D, nogueira F, Tavira L, Camacho R, Exposto F. (2006). Mycoplasma fermentans and Mycoplasma penetrans in patients infected with HIV 1 and/or HIV 2 from a Portuguese hospital. International Journal of STD & AIDS 17: 26-26 Suppl.
• Ferreira F, Cano J, Furtado A, Ndong-Mabale N, Ndong-Asumu P, Benito A, Pinto J, Seixas J, Atouguia J and Centeno-Lima S. 2007. Another possibility to detect and identify by PCR Trypanosoma spp. in tsetse flies. Trop. Med. Int. Health. 12, Supp 1: 71.
• Seixas J, Moniz L, Pita F, Araujo A, Costa B, Ferreira F, Centeno-Lima S and Atouguia J. 2007. Gambiense Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT): a case report from Portugal. Trop. Med. Int. Health. 12, Supp 1: 255. IF: 2,46
• Silva MS, Monteiro GA, Atouguia J, Liberato P and Prazeres DMF. Humoral immune response induced in outbred CD1 mice by DNA vaccine against African Trypanosomiasis. Medimond International Proceedings, 88: 597-602, 2006.
• Tavares R, Peres S, Teodósio R, Mansinho K. 2006. Imported malaria cases at Egas Moniz Hospital, Lisbon 2000 to 2004. Int J Infect Dis. 10 (Suppl 1): S295. IF: 2,25
• Tavira LT. 2006. Abordagem sindromática das infecções sexualmente transmissíveis em países em desenvolvimento. XLII Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical. Teresina, Piauí,. Brasil. 4-8 March. Proceedings Soc Brás Med Trop.
• Teodósio R. 2006. Viajar para os trópicos, diminuir os riscos, manter a saúde. Revista e.Ciencia http://www.cienciapt.net/revista/20060216epi.pdf.

Master and Ph.D. thesis completed

• Joana de Abreu Carvalho. Direccionamento de antigénios no desenvolvimento de vacinas de DNA contra a tripanossomose africana. MSc thesis. Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 2005.
• Luís Távora Tavira. Contribuição para o estudo da infecção por micoplasmas urogenitais em populações de risco para infecções sexualmente transmissíveis. PhD Thesis. 2003
• Abílio Antunes. Susceptibilidade à Tuberculose: Factores Ambientais e Genéticos, incluindo infecção por V.I.H.-2, numa População Rural (Sector de Nhacra) na República Guiné-Bissau. PhD Thesis 2004.
• Jorge Seixas. Investigations on the Encephalopatic syndrome during melarsoprol treatment of Human African Trypanosomiasis. PhD Thesis, Insituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. 2005
• Rosa Teodósio– Medicina das Viagens na Sub_região de Saúde de Lisboa. Contribuição para o seu conhecimento. PhD Thesis 2005
• Marcelo Sousa Silva. DNA vaccine: the experimental immunization model against African Trypanosomiasis. PhD thesis. Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 2006.

Patents/propotypes

Plasmids DNA prototypes encoding antigenic candidates genes from Trypanosoma brucei parasites – approach for vaccine development against African Trypanosomiasis. Recently, in collaboration between Centre for Biotechnology and Biochemistry (IBB - Laboratory Associated – IST, Lisbon) and Centro de Biologia Molecular Severo Ochoa (Madrid – Spain), we created two bicistronic plasmids DNA encoding the combination of two target genes from Trypanosoma brucei with an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) from food-and-mouth virus. This system will be used in order to co-expression of two target genes in the same plasmid DNA and consequently to increase the efficiency of this immunization procedures for DNA vaccine development against African Trypanosomiasis.

Organization of conferences

• 3rd International Course on African Trypanosomes. Collaboration between: IHMT, World Health Organization, International Atomic Energy Agency, Association against Trypanosomiasis in Africa, Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres). Lisbon, 12 – 30 May 2003
• Sexually transmitted infections, HIV, gender and violence. L. Tavira, with STD Unit and the British Council. Lisbon, March 2005
• I Congress of the Portuguese Association of Clinical Laboratories; L.Tavira; Cascais – Portugal; April 2007
• Workshop & Steering Committee Meeting of the European Network for the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Europe and Beyond (EN-HERA!) Lisbon – March 2007; Tavira L & col.
• 8th TropNetEurop Workshop. J Atouguia, J Seixas, L Távora Tavira, S Centeno Lima. Lisbon. September 2007, IHMT.
• V Encontro de Infecciologia Pediátrica; Varandas L, Member of the Organizing committee, Lisbon, 1st June 2007.
• 25th Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases Varandas L, Member of the Organizing committee, Porto, 2-4 May 2007.
• 1ª Reunião Luso-Brasileira de Infecciologia Pediátrica Varandas L, Member of the Organizing committee, Porto, 1st May 2007.
• Congresso da Lusofonia “Longevidade em Saúde”. Nina J, Member of the Organizing and of the Scientific committee Lisbon, IHMT.
• Workshop on Microsatellite analysis. S Lima, J Atouguia, S Cortes, L Campino. IHMT. Lisbon. 15-17 November 2007.

Government/Organization contract research 

The group actively participates in cross-group activities funded by the Portuguese Cooperation Institute, namely the PROCAPS program for capacity building of health institutions in Angola [please see LA’s description for details].

Members of the Group act as consultants for some governmental departments, including Portuguese and foreign governments.

Internationalization   

The group and its members integrate several INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS, including the European Network for the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Europe and Beyond (EN-HERA!); Iberian Platform for Malaria; Rides, Portuguese-speaking researcher’s network for tropical health; TropnetEurope network for Infectious Diseases Surveillance; EHAS-ALIS. Enlace Hispano Americano de Salud.

The group was pioneer in the restart of FIELD WORK IN ANGOLA. Ongoing collaborations are kept with the Luanda Paediatric Hospital, with the Institute for Trypanosomiasis Control and Surveillance (ICCT) and with the Medicine Faculty of Luanda, consisting in support in training and research projects. In the same work-frame a standing collaboration was kept with the Instituto Português de Medicina Preventiva, a Portuguese NGO established in Luanda, for the support of screening activities for Human African Trypanosomiasis in the Bengo province.

With MOZAMBIQUE we have ongoing collaborations with the Biotechnology Centre and the Veterinary Faculty of the University Eduardo Mondlane.

Our group also has active cooperation activities IN EUROPE with the Centro de Biologia Molecular Severo Ochoa – Universidade Autónoma de Madrid and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain; University of Caglari, Italy; the London School of Tropical Medicine; the Division of Infection and Immunity, University of Glasgow Veterinary School, Glasgow, the Faculty of Medicine , Imperial College, London in the United Kingdom, Swiss Tropical Institute, Basel, Switzerland, Institut d’Epidémiologie Neurologique et de Neurologie Tropicale, Limoges, France and Laboratório Especial de Microbiologia - Instituto Butantan. São Paulo – BRASIL.

Future Research

Objectives:

Following the joint strategic decisions at LA level, the group will focus in three main areas for the next period: i) Clinical studies on endemic & poverty diseases involving FIELD STATIONS IN AFRICA; ii) Development and testing of detection and DIAGNOSTICS DEVICES for tropical diseases; and iii) MIGRANT AND TRAVELER’S STUDIES. Emerging diseases are in consideration as a trans-group important component.

It is also envisaged to pursue more specific research activities on HUMAN AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS, including molecular epidemiology studies (association between ES and HLA, to explore the molecular basis of ES and the relationships between ES and CNS auto-immune and degenerative diseases); the collaboration with the Cochrane Group for the development of additional study themes in tropical medicine; the development of main investigation lines in DNA vaccine development, pathogenesis, pharmacology and diagnosis areas using African Trypanosomiasis as a disease model.

Investment in the INTESTINAL PARASITES line will include starting projects in i) Characterization of Giardia intestinalis genotypes isolated from children, elderly people, travellers, dogs and cats and its relationship to host and geographic origin; ii) Prevalence of intestinal parasites in HIV patients in Cabo Verde Prevalence of intestinal parasites in specific groups, including men who have sex with men) and Molecular identification of intestinal protozoan in children in Maputo, Mozambique; two PhD projects on Giardia and Entamoeba.

Funding

The group is constantly applying for funds – national and international – having recently submitted applications to European projects. Ongoing funded projects include LabAid Mindelo (GSK Foundation), FCT projects, PTDC/CVT/72624/2006 - Use of the vaccine adjuvant for immunomodulation of the infection caused by Trypanosoma brucei: an approach to vaccine design. Supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. 2007 to 2010; PTDC/EIA/70841/2006 - ILP-web-service: an inductive logic programming based web service. Supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. 2007 to 2010; POCI/CVT/61090/2004 - Development of DNA vaccine prototypes for veterinary trypanosomiasis. Supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. 2004 to 2008.

Previous publications in the area 

• Amaral L, Kristiansen JE, Viveiros M, Atouguia J. (2001) Activity of phenothiazines against antibiotic-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis: a review supporting further studies that may elucidate the potential use of thioridazine as anti-tuberculosis therapy. J Antimicrob Chemother 2001 May; 47(5):505-11
• Atouguia, J. and Costa, J. (1999) Therapy of human African Trypanosomiasis: current situation. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 94(2): 221-224.
• Atouguia, J.M., Jennings, F.W. and Murray, M. (1995) Successful treatment of experimental murine Trypanosoma brucei infection with topical melarsoprol gel. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 89: 531-533.
• Jennings, F.W., Atouguia, J.M. and Murray, M. (1993) Topical melarsoprol for trypanosomiasis. Lancet 341: 1341-1342.
• Jennings, F.W., Atouguia, J.M. and Murray, M. (1996) The importance of 2,3-dimercaptopurinol (British anti-lewisite, BAL) in the trypanocidal activity of topical melarsoprol. Acta Tropica 62: 83-89.
• Jennings, F.W., Atouguia, J.M. and Murray, M. (1996) Topical chemotherapy for experimental murine African CNS-trypanosomiasis: the successful use of the arsenical, melarsoprol, combined with the 5-nitroimidazoles, fexinidazole or MK-436-436. Tropical Medicine and International Health 5: 590-598.
• Veiga Fernandes, J.H., Atouguia, J.M., Peleteiro, M.C., Jennings, F.W. and Rosário, V.E. (1997) Post-treatment hind-leg paralysis in mice infected with Trypanosoma brucei brucei: a light microscopic study. Acta Tropica 63: 179-184.

Special Requirements

Reinforcement of the human resources is being supported by the LA’s program, trough the integration of one Immunologist (Ciência 2007 program) and one Biotechnologist for kit development (Ciência 2008 program). This will enhance the capacity to translate applied research results in prototype production, as sated.

Special requirements to implement on-location activities in Africa will include i) financial resources to support local permanent investigators and related expenses; ii) Re-equipment of the LA and local structures, specially adapted to research and post-graduate training in clinical and pathology studies.

Research Group Information
(RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3137)

Designation:

Parasitology

Principal Investigator:

Virgilio Estolio do Rosario

Location of Group:

Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Keywords:

Malaria, Leishmania,Drug Resistance,Entomology

Funding, sources, dates

Between 2003 and 2007, funds were obtained from the 5th, 6th FWP (European Union), TDR WHO, on projects for malaria (drug resistance/DNA chips, environmental changes, entomology and Parasitology field work), Trypanosomiasis, Leishmaniasis, and networking (Latin America and EU cooperation, tick transmitted diseases, neglected diseases).

Funding was obtained from Portuguese sources (FCT MCTES) for research and PhD projects, from IPAD (Portuguese Development Agency), and Gulbenkian Foundation. Brazil and Angola co financed training locally. CMDT presence and participation at 3 Congresses on Tropical Meetings in Brazil were cosponsored with Brazilian funds.

More recently, w/Industry support for projects in malaria was obtained (rapid diagnostic assays based upon urine samples, study on potential establishment of vector breeding sites for the tourism industry, and evaluation of insecticide impregnated clothing) and Leishmaniasis (vaccine trials).

Group Team

List of Researchers in the Group:

001. Virgilio Estolio do Rosario ( Cat.: Professor Catedrático Gr. Acad.: Agregação )

002. Gabriela Maria Santos Gomes ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

003. Henrique Manuel Condinho da Silveira ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

004. Pedro Vitor Lemos Cravo ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

005. Ana Paula Martins Reis Arez ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

006. Jacques Derek Charlwood ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

007. João Pedro Soares da Silva Pinto ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

008. Maria de Fátima Carvalho Nogueira ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

009. Ana Julia Pinto Fonseca Sieuve Afonso ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

010. Nuno Miguel Carmona de Jesus Rolão ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

011. Patrícia Carla Simões Abrantes ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

012. Dinora Maria da Silva Lopes Ferreira ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/PhD):

001. Isabel Sa-Correia ( Cat.: Professor Catedrático Gr. Acad.: Agregação )

002. Rui Ferreira Alves Moreira ( Cat.: Professor Catedrático Gr. Acad.: Agregação )

003. Agustin Benito LLanes ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

004. Ana Maria Luis Ramos Tomas ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

005. Antoniana Ursine Krettli ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

006. Isabel Maria Soares Pereira da Fonseca de Sampaio ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

007. Jorge Macedo Rocha ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

008. Lenea Maria Graca Campino ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Agregação )

009. Maria José Umbelino Ferreira ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

010. Abel Martin Gonzalez Oliva ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

011. Amanda Elena Maestro Buitrago ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

012. Ana Margarida Aires Alves Vigário ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

013. Lidia Adelina Po Catalao Dionisio ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

014. Vera Linda Ribeiro Marques ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

015. Maria Eugénia Meirinhos da Cruz ( Cat.: Investigador Principal Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

016. Maria Gabriela Miranda Gomes ( Cat.: Investigador Principal Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

017. Luís Miguel Martins Lucas Cardoso ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

018. Maria Sofia Cobra Lince Núncio Soares-Maria Sofia Núncio ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

019. Luis Carlos Bernerdo Gil das Neves ( Cat.: Assistente Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

020. Patrícia Isabel Rosa Salgueiro ( Cat.: Assistente de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

021. Axel Martinelli ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

022. Licínio Manuel Mendes Manco ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/o PhD):

001. Filomeno de Jesus Pires Coelho Fortes ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

002. José Luis Cravo Vicente ( Cat.: Assistente de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

003. Adilson José de Pinade Pina ( Cat.: Estagiário de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

004. Ana Rute Côrte-Real Martins ( Cat.: Estagiário de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

005. Cristina Isabel Rodrigues Mendes ( Cat.: Estagiário de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

006. João Bruno Figueira de Sousa e Silva ( Cat.: Estagiário de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

007. Vânia Helena Melicio Teófilo ( Cat.: Estagiário de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

008. Zoraima Naymbe da Silva Neto ( Cat.: Estagiário de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

009. Afonso de Almeida ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

010. Albertina da Conceição Puati loureiro ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

011. Bruno Gomes da Silva ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

012. carla alexandra soares maia ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

013. Cátia Beatriz Almeida Ramalhete ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

014. Claudia Silva Marques ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

015. Idalina dos Ramos Bonfim Gaspar ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

016. ISABEL DINIS FERREIRA ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

017. Joana Baptista Alves ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

018. Louise Alves Pereira Rodrigues ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

019. Luis Filipe Vieira da Silva Lopes ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

020. MARIA FERNANDA AFONSO DIAS MONTEIRO ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

021. Marta Carolina Soares Clemente ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

022. Natercia Emilia Pedro Fernandes ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

023. Nilton Saraiva dos Anjos da Silveira Francisco ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

024. Olivia Roos Rodrigues ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

025. Patrícia Isabel Pires Machado ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

026. Paula Cristina Domingues Figueiredo ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

027. Paulo Adão de Campos ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

028. Ricardo Orlando Neto Alves ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

029. Rute Castelo Félix ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

030. Sofia Trindade Borges ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

031. Susana Filipa Garcia Ramos ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

032. Tiago Miguel Lopes Martins ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

033. Ana Catarina Rodrigues Alves ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

034. Isabel Maria Morais Lopes Mariano ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

035. João Fernando Leça Ramada ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Ensino Secundário )

036. Jose Manuel Martins Cristovao ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Bacharelato )

037. Sofia Cortes ( Cat.: Outra Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

Objectives & Achievements

Objectives:

Parasitology Group comprises research lines on Malaria, Leishmaniasis, Tick Transmitted Parasitosis and Trypanosomiasis.

Malaria includes a) ENTOMOLOGY (bio-ecology, population genetics, molecular evolution of insect vectors, insecticide resistance) under J Pinto; b) DRUG RESISTANCE [mechanisms of drug resistance in human and rodent malaria, Artemisinin Combination Therapy, ARMD phenotyping, in vitro assays, medicinal plants, drug targets, pharmacogenetics] under P Cravo and V Rosário; c) DISEASE SUSCEPTIBILITY (erythrocyte enzymatic deficiencies) under AP Arez; d) MOSQUITO IMMUNITY (immune modulation) under H Silveira, e) MOLECULAR EPIDEMIOLOGY (parasites/human host populations characterization, transmission dynamics, mixed infections or drug resistance impact) carried out by all. DIAGNOSTICS (w/ Industry) and ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES impact evaluation under V Rosário. These lines are carried out in Portugal, Spain, Africa (Mozambique, Angola, Cabo Verde, São Tomé Principe, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea), Brazil and East Timor.

Leishmaniasis research is divided by a) VACCINES (canine vaccine trials), molecular EPIDEMIOLOGY (infection-associated polymorphisms) under L Campino, b) GENETICS OF DRUG RESPONSE (susceptibility to old/new drugs) under N Rolão, and c) IMMUNOLOGY AND CONTROL STRATEGIES (new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics) under G Santos-Gomes.

Tick Transmitted Diseases (Babesiosis, Theileriosis) research has focused on the development of new DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS with the support of a EU network (ICCTD), under V Rosário and A Domingos.

Animal Trypanosomiasis research was supported by an EU project, mainly developed at UTPAM (INETI) out in Angola on IMMUNOLOGY (C Novo) and EPIDEMIOLOGY (V Rosario). These were later transferred to other research groups.

As a strategy, Parasitology group research has always been performed in a collaborative effort with national, CPLP countries, EU and USA (formal networks and individual collaborations) which allows a permanent knowledge and technology transfer.

Main Achievements:

ENTOMOLOGY AND CONTROL STRATEGIES

Estimates of vectorial capacity and competence for A atroparvus were obtained contributing to the evaluation of malaria re-emergency risk in Portugal.

Field studies in malaria show high prevalence of mixed infections in mosquitoes, relevant to vaccine application.

Regarding origins and evolution of A gambiae into STP islands, a multi-gene approach analysis coupled with historical records pinpoint two major colonisation events.

Four independent mutations on A gambiae DDT/pyrethroid knockdown resistance gene (kdr) were detected by a multi-centre study in 15 African countries.

Two protein fractions isolated from L infantum secretome used to immunize mice give partial protection when challenged with infective promastigotes.

TREATMENT/RESISTANCE

Two novel mutations in a gene encoding de-ubiquitinating enzyme were identified in resistant P chabaudi lines to chloroquine and artesunate.

Transient high level of artemisinin resistance in P falciparum was obtained by continuous in vitro drug pressure and is associated to amplification of pfmdr1 gene.

The efficacy of liposomal trifluralin to treat canine Leishmaniasis was demonstrated in Beagle dogs experimentally infected with L. infantum; trifluralin derivatives are presently under evaluation.

IMMUNITY

Implementation of mosquito immunity models with potential application to malaria control.

Chloroquine can alter mosquito infection through modulation of the A gambiae immune response.

Variability of virulence in strains of L infantum MON-1 was associated to specific humoral/cellular immune responses.

H-2 locus differentially regulated L infantum infection by inhibiting TNF-? and enhancing TGF-? expression.

CD4+CD25+ T cells associated to sequestration in spleen and lymph nodes in L infantum-infected BALB/c, was shown to be relevant for chronic infections.

DIAGNOSTICS

A diagnostic test using a recombinant L infantum tryparedoxin was produced

Preliminary data indicate urine molecules as potential targets for diagnosis.

Group Productivity

Publications in peer review Journals

• Abrantes P, Lopes LF, Rosário VE, Silveira H. Effect of chloroquine on the expression of genes involved in the mosquito immune response to Plasmodium infection. Insect Biochem. Mol. Biol. (2005) 35: 1124-1132. [IF=2.827;NC=3]
• Afonso A, Hunt P, Cheesman S, Alves AC, Cunha CV, Rosário VE, Cravo P. Malaria parasites can develop stable resistance to artemisinin but lack mutations in candidate genes atp6 (encoding the sarcoplasmic and endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase), tctp, mdr1, and cg10. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. (2006) 50: 480-489. [IF=4.390;NC= 30]
• Alves J, Roque AL, Cravo P, Valdez T, Jelinek T, Rosário VE, Arez AP. Epidemiological characterization of Plasmodium falciparum in the Republic of Cabo Verde: implications for potential large-scale re-emergence of malaria. Malar J. (2006) 21: 32. [IF=2.473;NC=3]
• Gil JP, Nogueira F, Stromberg-Norklit J, Lindberg J, Carrolo M, Casimiro C, Lopes D, Arez AP, Cravo PV, Rosario VE. Detection of atovaquone and Malarone (TM) resistance conferring mutations in Plasmodium falciparum cytochrome b gene (cytb). Mol. Cell. Probes (2003) 17: 85-89. [IF= 2.364;NC=20]
• Gomes-Pereira S, Rodrigues OR, Santos-Gomes GM. Dynamics of CD62L/CD45RB CD4(+) and CD8(+) lymphocyte subsets in hepatic and splenic tissues during murine visceral leishmaniasis. Immunol. Lett. (2004) 95: 63-70. [IF=2.628;NC=6]
• Gomes-Pereira S, Roos Rodrigues O, Rolão N, Almeida PD, Santos-Gomes GM. Hepatic cellular immune responses in mice with “cure” and “non-cure” phenotype bto Leishmania infantum infection: importance of CD8+ T cells and TGF- production. FEMS Immunol. Med. Microbiol. (2004) 41: 59-68. [IF=1.814;NC=16]
• Hunt P, Afonso A, Creasey A, Culleton R, Sidhu AB, Logan J, Valderramos SG, McNae I, Cheesman S, Rosário VE, Carter R, Fidock DA, Cravo P. Gene encoding a deubiquitinating enzyme is mutated in artesunate- and chloroquine-resistant rodent malaria parasites. Mol. Microbiol. (2007) 65: 27-40. [IF=5.462;NC=7]
• Maia C, Rolão N, Nunes M, Gonçalves L, Campino L. Infectivity of five different types of macrophages by Leishmania infantum. Acta Tropica (2007) 103: 150-155. [IF=2.00;NC=1]
• Pinto J, Donnelly MJ, Sousa CA, Malta-Vacas J, Gil V, Ferreira C, Petrarca V, Rosário VE, Charlwood JD. An island within an island: genetic differentiation of Anopheles gambiae in São Tomé, West Africa, and its relevance to malaria vector control. Heredity (2003) 91: 407-414. [IF=4.065;NC=13]
• Ravel C, Cortes S, Pratlong F, Morio F, Dedet JP, Campino L. First report of genetic hybrids between two very divergent Leishmania species: L. infantum and L. major. International Journal for Parasitology (2006) 36: 1383-1388. [IF=3.392;NC=6]

Other publications National

• Arez AP, Sónia CL, Rosário VE. Novas doenças em Portugal? Ambiente (2003) 21: 60-61.
• Campino L., Bajanca R., Franca I., Pratlong F., Dedet JP., Fiadeiro T. Leishmaniose cutânea causada por Leishmania infantum zimodeme MON-1 em Portugal. Acta Médica Portuguesa (2005) 18:475-478.
• Maia C, Cristóvão J, Ramada J, Rolão N, Campino L. Diagnóstico da Leishmaniose canina pela técnica de PCR aplicada a sangue periférico em papéis de filtro. Resultados preliminares. Veterinary Medicine 478: 29-33.
• Maia C. Diagnóstico laboratorial da Leishmaniose canina. Veterinária Técnica (2005) 2: 34-37.
• Sousa CA, Pinto J, Ferreira C, Remmers J, Santos-Grácio AJ, Rosário VE. Preliminary data on insecticide resistance in Anopheles gambiae of São Tomé island, West Africa. VII Congresso Português de Parasitologia. Lisbon, Portugal. Acta Parasitológica Portuguesa 10: 80-81.

Other publications International

• Abrantes P, do Rosário VE, Silveira H. Effect of chloroquine on Anopheles gambiae immune response to Plasmodium infection. Keystone Symposia Genetic Manipulation of Insects (B3) (2004), 64.
• Cortes S, Almeida A, Pratlong F, Dedet JP, Campino L. Leishmania infantum diversity in Portugal: application of kDNA as a molecular marker. World Congress on Leishmaniosis (2005) Abstracts book: 298.
• Hunt P, Afonso A, Culleton R, Creasey A, Fidock D, Rosário VE, Cravo P. Molecular and Genetic Analysis of Malaria Parasites Resistant to Artemisinin. MEDIMOND International Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Parasitology - ICOPA XI (2006): 425-428.
• Miranda J, Gonçalves N, Picanço I, Rosário VE, Faustino P, Arez AP. Sickle-cell trait and red cell glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase status and malaria morbidity in Angola. Proceedings of the 5th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health (2007): 65-68.
• Nogueira F, Lopes D, Gil JP, Rosário VE, Cravo P. Efflux pumps of antimalarial-resistant Plasmodium falciparum. 6th European Congress of Chemotherapy and Infection, 24th Interdisciplinary Meeting of Anti-Infection Chemotherapy. Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2004 Dec;24 Suppl 2:S77-278
• Rolão N, Cortes S, Gomes-Pereira S, Rodrigues-Roos O, Campino L. Mixed Th1/Th2 Immune Response in L. Infantum Infected Balb/C Mice. Third World Congress on Leishmaniosis (2005). Abstracts book: 273.
• Roos Rodrigues O, Marques C, Ferronha MH, Santos-Gomes GM. Zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis: CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells during Leishmania infantum infection. 1st Joint meeting of European National Societies of Immunology. 16th European Congress of Immunology PB-3534 (2006).
• Santolamazza F, Calzetta M, Carrara G, Dia I, Moreno M, Fortes F, Caccone A, Petrarca V, Donnelly MJ, Pinto J., della Torre A. Co-occurrence of “east” and “west” African kdr mutations in Anopheles gambiae S-form (Dipetra: Culicidae) in West Africa. American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 55th Annual Meeting. Am. J.Trop. Med. Hyg. (2006) 75 (Suppl.): 176.
• Santos-Gomes GM, Marques C, Jorge J, Carvalheiro M, Pereira MA, Cruz E. Efficacy of liposome trifluralin in the treatment of experimental canine infection. 3rd Cost B22 Congress on Drug Discovery and Development for Parasitic Diseases (2006). Abstracts book: 128
• Vicente JL, Salgueiro P, Arez AP, Cravo PVL, Ferreira C, Rosário VE, Pinto J. Genetic characterisation of Plasmodium falciparum populations in São Tomé and Príncipe islands, West Africa. 5th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health. Amsterdão, Holanda. Trop. Med. Inte. Health (2007) 12 (Suppl. 1): 78.

Organization of conferences

1. “Workshop on Leishmaniasis Therapeutics", CMDT/IHMT, Lisboa, Portugal, 7 February 2007.

2. 05 Workshops in Latin America under Alcuehealth (Five workshops in Brasil, Guatemala, El Salvador and Argentina).

3. 03 Meetings on Tropical Medicine in Collaboration with Brazil (I, II and III Encontro de Medicina Tropical da CPLP, Brasil, 2006/7/8). See Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical.

4. “Métodos de Ensino e Investigação Aplicáveis ao Laboratório Multiusuário em Doenças Infecciosas e Tropicais da Pós-Graduação da Universidade do Estado do Amazonas e Fundação de Medicina Tropical do Amazonas” (Setembro a Novembro 2007)

5. Seminário da Terapêutica da Malária, with Portuguese speaking countries representatives.

6. Plataforma Ibérica da Malária, 34 research groups from Portugal and Spain (Novembro 2007).

7. Courses in Angola and Mozambique:

Workshop “Insecticide resistance in malaria vectors”. Held at the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Pública, Luanda, Angola (23-28 October, 2006).

“Methodologies of Research using molecular biology tools no Instituto Nacional de Saúde, Luanda, Angola (Março 2006).

"Molecular tools applied to health and environmental studies", na Faculdade de Veterinária da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Moçambique (Julho 2005).

Curso “Noções básicas de Genética e de Biologia Molecular aplicadas à Saúde” Instituto Nacional de Saúde, Ministério da Saúde, Angola 27/05-04/06/05.

8. “Gene Silencing workshop” University of Algarve, Portugal 12-15/04/05.

9. 1st Annual Workshop, COST Action 857 - Apicomplexan Biology in the post-genomic era, Lisbon, Portugal, 3-6/05/2004

Industry contract research

2007: Contract with the textile industry TINAMAR - Tinturaria Têxtil, S.A. (Braga). Field and laboratory assays to evaluate the insecticide/repellency efficacy of fabrics impregnated with permethrin, DEET and citronella by nanoencapsulation. PI: VE Rosário.

2007: Contract with ECOSSISTEMA-Consultores em Engenharia do Ambiente, Lda. Development of the entomological component in Environmental Impact Studies. PI: VE Rosário.

Project on Diagnosis of malaria in urine samples (70/2006/31B/00100/0023) with Imunostar.

Internationalization

Successful Collaborative research and training activities have allowed sharing biological material and equipment, technology transfer, student mobility, advanced training and funding with EU, US, Africa (PALOP, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, Sudan, Morocco, Tunes), Central and South America (Mexico, Colombia, Brazil), Far East (Taiwan, E Timor, Thailand).

We emphasise:

MolEpiNet - network of 5 EU countries to standardize PCR in malaria epidemiology studies

Eden - studies on the potential re-emergence of malaria in Europe (44 institutions)

DNA chips - production of a DNA chip for antimalarial-resistance phenotyping in endemic regions aiming at control and policy making

RIDES - networking of CPLP aiming at discussing malaria control strategies and policies

Iberian Malaria Platform – networking of 34 institutions aiming at promoting resources sharing, multidisciplinary groups and mobility

WHO/TDR - network aimed at technical progress in drug assays using specific P. berghei models

LEISH-MED - network that links European, South and East Mediterranean partners to assess main risk factors of leishmaniasis spread around the Mediterranean basin and to promote transborder control strategies

LeishDOMUS - internet database for dissemination and management of typing data (http://www.leishdomus.org)

CYTED - network on mechanisms of control and immunoprophylaxis in Leishmaniasis

ICTTD3 - network on Tick Transmitted Diseases including taxonomy, workshops, exchange of students and training

Alcueh – EU-South America-Caribbean network on Health Systems, Neglected diseases, Biotechnology applied to disease control

EDCTP - representative of Portugal in the programme for art 169 in clinical trials of malaria TB and HIV-AIDS

ESFRI - representative of Portugal in discussions on research infrastructures in the EU

COST Actions - 857 Apicomplexan Biology in the post-genomic era and B22 Drug development for parasitic diseases – representative of Portugal in workshops organization, exchange of students and scientists

Master and Ph.D. thesis completed

PhD Thesis

• Abrantes P. Effect of chloroquine on the modulation of mosquito vector response to Plasmodium infection. IHMT/UNL (2007).
• Afonso A. Studies on the genetics of artemisinin resistance in malaria. IHMT/UNL (2007).
• Gomes-Pereira S. Infection by Leishmania infantum in murine model: Influence of H-2 haplotype on cellular immune response. IHMT/UNL (2005).
• Lopes D. Antimalarial Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum: interaction between the genes pfcrt and pfmdr1. IHMT/UNL (2005).
• Nogueira F. Studies on malaria, with special relevance to the biology of multidrug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum. IHMT/UNL (2007).
• Pinto J. Population structure of Anopheles gambiae Giles, 1902 and the epidemiology and control of malaria on the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, West Africa. FCUL (2003).
• Rolão NM. Characterization of organ-related responses to Leishmania infantum infection in the murine model. IHMT/UNL (2005).
• Rosa R. Study of the immune response induced by soluble antigens secreted by Leishmania infantum. IHMT/UNL (2006).

MSc Thesis

• Almeida A. Genetic characterisation of P. falciparum from the Huila province, Angola. IHMT/UNL (2005).
• Alves J. Determination of residual foci of P. falciparum in Santiago, Cabo Verde. IHMT/UNL (2004).
• Djokovic D. Development of an assay for high throughput antimalarial drug screening in vivo. IHMT/UNL (2007).
• Fernandes TB. Estudo da variação intra-específica da virulência de estirpes de Leishmania infantum MON-1 que circulam em Portugal. IHMT/UNL (2004).
• Ferreira CO. Análise do perfil genético de populações de P.vivax e P.falciparum do Estado do Amazonas. Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Brasil. (2007).
• Figueiredo AS. Estudos de resistência a antifolatos em Plasmodium falciparum. IHMT/UNL (2004).
• Kanganje Y. Knockdown insecticide resistance in Anopheles gambiae Giles, 1902 populations from Angola, Southern Africa. FCUL (2007).
• Marques P. Estudo das infecções simples e mistas por Plasmodium sp. na população humana em duas áreas distintas do Distrito da Manhiça, Moçambique. IHMT/UNL (2004).
• Mendes C. Associação entre as populações parasitárias de Plasmodium sp. e polimorfismos eritrocitários–drepanocitose e deficiência em glucose-6-fosfato desidrogenase-em Angola.FCT/UNL (2007).
• Miranda J. Estudo de determinantes genéticos de susceptibilidade/resistência em crianças com diferentes níveis clínicos de gravidade de malária (Luanda, Angola). IHMT/UNL (2007).
• Pereira MAM. Susceptibilidade dos cães de raças portuguesas à infecção por L. infantum. IHMT/UNL (2004).
• Silva RC. Genetic characterization of Anopheles gambiae in Gabon: gene dispersal and insecticide resistance. FCUL (2006).

Future Research

Objectives:

1. Parasitology research at CMDT.LA will continue to pursue on-going research area in which new objectives are to be achieved and implementation of new lines.
2. Recently found exceptional high rate of M/S (units of an on-going speciation process) hybrids of A gambiae in Guinea Bissau raised the hypothesis of a hybrid zone. We will further explore this hypothesis by analyzing additional samples from other sites of Guinea Bissau and The Gambia and from different years of collection.
3. Completion of on-going studies on population genetic structure of the mosquito vectors A atroparvus, A darlingi and C pipiens, as well as for the tsetse fly G palpalis and the malaria parasite P. falciparum.
4. Regarding insecticide resistance, we will be consultants of a recently funded TDR network on insecticide resistance in African malaria vectors, coordinated by the LSTM (H Ranson). We will provide support to the Angolan partner in insecticide resistance monitoring, a genotyping of resistance genes and training
5. New line of research focusing on ecological genetics of malaria vectors will be developed with the aim of studying the genetic basis of swarming/mating behaviour. This is a key issue for the success of transgenic-based vector control.
6. In order to investigate the genetic traits that influence the appearance of parasites that are simultaneously resistant to different drugs (accelerated resistance to multiple drugs (ARMD) phenotype) we will use a P. chabaudi model to determine dynamics and parasite fitness
7. To pursue the studies on erythrocyte enzymatic deficiencies and protection against malaria with prospecting frequencies of these deficiencies on endemic areas, using in vitro and in vivo experimental models and molecular and biochemical study of enzymes
8. Our microarray and functional genomics data indicate that coagulation can play a major role on malaria parasite control by the mosquito. The role of this effector mechanism during mosquito infection will be characterized trough molecular and biochemical characterization of proteins such as the enzime transglutaminase.
9. As a consequence of collaboration with Fundação de Medicina Tropical do Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil a project joining expertise of both institutions will be initiated, aiming at studying epidemiological and immunological aspects of the co-infection Malaria Mansonelosis in the Amazon region of Coari.
10. Field studies on endemic areas are pursued aiming at comparing different settings and different ecological and malaria epidemiology conditions, which will allow the establishment and understanding of differences on the malaria transmission patterns. Contacts with S T Principe and Taiwan are in progress.
11. Establishment of informatics tools for better use of data collection on malaria in Mozambique.
12. Finally, a) efforts will be made to further expand our collaborations with industry and SME; b) post-graduation training and PhD programmes are being adjusted to Bologna agreements c) acquired RD experience in Parasitology at CMDT.LA must be transferred into the field of neglected diseases.

Funding, source, dates (indicate in full including amount of current and pending funding)

Funding relies on submission of projects to funding agencies like FCT, Portugal, EU, TDR, and other local and international sources. Ongoing projects will support some of the delineated objectives and further support will be sought.

Ongoing projects:

FCT:

PTDC/BIA-MIC/65861/2006, end 2011;

PTDC/CVT/70275/2006, end 2011;

POCI/SAU-ESP/55110/2004 end 2008;

POCI/BIA-BDE/57650/2004, end 2009;

POCI/SAU-ESP/56903/2004, end 2009.

POCI/CVT/55113/2004, end 2009

POCI/CVT/56995/2004, end 2009

EU:

EDEN–FP6/EC (Co. nº 010284), ends 2009;

Previous publications in the area

• Abrantes P, Dimopoulos G, Grosso AR, do Rosa´rio VE, Silveira H (2008) Chloroquine mediated modulation of Anopheles gambiae gene expression. PLoS ONE 3(7): e2587.
• Arez A.P., Pinto J., Pålsson K., Snounou G., Jaenson T.G.T. & do Rosário V.E. 2003 - Transmission of mixed Plasmodium species and Plasmodium falciparum genotypes. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 68: 161-168.
• Charlwood JD, Pinto J, Sousa CA, Madsen H, Ferreira C & do Rosário VE (2002). The swarming and mating behaviour of Anopheles gambiae s.s. (Diptera: Culicidae) from São Tomé island. Journal of Vector Ecology 27: 178-183
• Manco L., Machado P., Lopes D., Nogueira F., do Rosário V.E., Alonso P., Varandas L., Bento C., Trovoada M.J., Amorim A., Arez A.P. - Analysis of TPI gene promoter variation in 3 sub-Saharan Africa population samples. American Journal of Human Biology. In Press.
• Marques CS, Rolão N, Centeno-Lima S, Lousada H, Maia C, Campino L, do Rosário VE, Silveira H (2005) Studies in a co-infection murine model of Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi and Leishmania infantum: IFN-g and IL-4 mRNA expression. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 100: 889-892
• Oliveira E, Salgueiro P, Palsson K, Vicente JL, Arez AP, Jaenson TG, Caccone A & Pinto J (2008) High Levels of hybridization between molecular forms of Anopheles gambiae from Guinea Bissau. Journal of Medical Entomology. In press.

Special Requirements 

Parasitology is of great demand for training and RD at different levels. The great amount of genotyping predicted for the lines of research demands an increase or renewal of small equipments such as micropipettes, thermocyclers and electrophoresis apparatus. New acquisition of Real-time PCR thermocyclers is needed for the analysis of gene expression or genotyping. In order to perform functional studies equipment for parasite transformation and equipment for detection of transformed parasites (fluorescence/ quemiluminescence) is needed. Analyses involving major equipment such as automated sequencer or microarray reader will be carried out abroad, through our network of collaborators.

As we have the expertise for mosquito infection with human Plasmodium parasites, safety insectaries are a MUST, especially for environmental changes projects.

Research Group Information (RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3138)

Designation:

Public Health

Principal Investigator:

Gilles Dussault

Location of Group:

Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Keywords:

Global Health Initiatives, Health workforce, Satisfaction of health workers, Family health services

Funding

European Commission, FCT, WHO, DANIDA, DFID, International Council of Nurses, Ministry of Health of Portugal

Group Team

List of Researchers in the Group:

001. Gilles Dussault ( Cat.: Professor Catedrático Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

002. Paulo de Lyz Girou Martins Ferrinho ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Agregação )

003. Sónia Maria Ferreira Dias ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/PhD):

001. Luzia Augusta Pires Gonçalves ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/o PhD):

001. Ines Santos Estevinho Fronteira Goncalves ( Cat.: Assistente Convidado

Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

002. Andre Rosa Biscaia ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

003. Isabel Maria Rodrigues Craveiro ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

Objectives & Achievements

Objectives:

The Public health group focuses on 4 areas of research:

1. health workforce policies and management
2. the implementation of family health in Portugal
3. the health status and behaviors of migrants
4. modelization in epidemiology of infectious diseases

Specific projects aimed:

• To assess the impact of Global Health Initiatives on policy, planning, management and organization of health services in 3 Southern Africa countries (Angola, Mozambique, South Africa)
• To identify health workforce deficiencies and their impact on the performance of health services in Angola, Guinea Bissau, and Mozambique. To identify the dimensions of the process of scaling-up the production of health workers in low-income countries.
• To measure the satisfaction of users and health workers in health centers in Portugal
• To analyze the process of implementation of family health Units in Portugal
• To characterize the behavior of adolescents in relation to reproductive health and to identify implications for health education and promotion

Main Achievements:

1- Literature reviews on national health planning processes and practices in Angola and Mozambique. Design of field study protocols.

2- “Situation analysis” of the health workforce situation in 3 countries.

3- Report on “Scaling-up the production of health workers in low-income countries” ( in print by ICN).

4- Country case study – Rwanda- (in Leadership in Health Services, in print).

Satisfaction study of users and health workers in health centers in Portugal Completed; Report and 1 article published.

First phase of research on the family health services reform completed; 2 articles and 1 book published (Biscaia A, Nunes M, Carreira M, Fronteira I, Antunes A, Ferrinho P. (2006), Cuidados de Saúde Primários em Portugal -Reformar para Novos Sucessos. Lisboa, Padrões Culturais Editora). The book received the Grand Prize of AstraZeneca Foundation.

3 articles published on reproductive health behaviour of adolescents.

4 articles published on statistical models of analysis of infectious diseases

Group Productivity

Publications in peer review Journals

1- Green, A., Collins, C., Stefanini, A., Ferrinho, P., Chapman, G., Hagos, B., Adams, Y., Omat, M. (2007). The role of strategic health planning processes in the development of health care reform policies: a comparative study of Eriteia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Int J Health Plan Mgmt; 22: 113-131

2- Maia C., Rolão N., Nunes M., Gonçalves L., Campino L. (2007). Infectivity of five different types of macrophages by Leishmania infantum. Acta Tropica, 103: p150-155. (IF= 2.000; nº C= 1)

3- Ferrinho, P., Biscaia, A. Fronteira, I., Hipólito, F., Dussault, G., (2007). Multiple Employment in the Health Sector in Portugal, Cahiers de Sociologie et Démographie médicales, vol.47 (3): 329-344.

4- Teodósio, R., Gonçalves, L., Atouguia, J., Imperatori, E. (2006). Pharmacists and Travel Advice for Tropics in Lisbon (Portugal). Journal of Travel Medicine, 13, p. 281–287. (IF=1.048; nº C= 0)

5- Teodósio, R., Gonçalves, L., Atouguia, J., Imperatori, E. (2006). Quality Assessment in a Travel Clinic: A Study of Travelers’ Knowledge About Malaria. Journal of Travel Medicine, 13, p 288–293. (IF=1.048; nº C= 0)

6- Dias, S., Matos, M.G., Gonçalves, A. (2005). Preventing HIV transmission in adolescents: an analysis of the Portuguese Data from health Behaviour School-aged Children Study and focus groups. European Journal of Public Health, 15 (3), 300-304. (IF=1.910; nº C= 1)

7- Gonçalves, L.; Zé-Zé, L.; Pinheiro, H.P.; Amaral-Turkman, M.A. (2005). Statistical Aspects in Physical Mapping - Application to the genome of O. oeni strain GM. Biometrics, 61, p.481-487. (IF=1.714; nº C= 0)

8- Dias, S., Matos G.M., Gonçalves A. (2005). Familial influences on sexual behaviour of adolescent: Implications for health promotion. Psychology & Health, 20 (1), 65. (IF=1.621; nº C= 0)

Sousa F Jr, Schwalbach J, Adam Y, Gonçalves L, Ferrinho P. (2007). The training and expectations of medical students in Mozambique. Human Resources for Health, 5:11. (unofficial IF= 1.43)

Dussault, G., Franceschini, M.C., (2006). “Not enough there, too many here: understanding geographical imbalances in the distribution of the health workforce” Human Resources for Health, 4:12. (unofficial IF= 1.43)

Other publications National

1- Fronteira I, Ferrinho P. (2007). O ensino da Epidemiologia nos cursos de licenciatura em Enfermagem da Região de Lisboa e Vale do Tejo. Revista Portuguesa de Saúde Pública; 25 (2): 23-30

2- Fronteira, I.; Conceição, C.; Biscaia, A. (2008). Políticas de saúde e enfermagem em Portugal: perspectivas evolucionistas para um futuro (in)certo. in Lima, J.A.; Pereira, H.R. (org) (2008). Políticas Públicas e conhecimento profissional: a educação e a enfermagem em reestruturação. 1ª Edição. Porto: Lipsic

3- Santos O, Biscaia A, Antunes AR, Craveiro I, Júnior A, Caldeira R; Charondière P. (2007). Os centros de saúde em Portugal – a satisfação dos utentes e dos profissionais. Lisboa: Missão para os Cuidados de Saúde Primários: 2007.

4- Biscaia A, Nunes M, Carreira M, Fronteira I, Antunes A, Ferrinho P. (2006), Cuidados de Saúde Primários em Portugal -Reformar para Novos Sucessos. Lisboa, Padrões Culturais Editora - Grande Prémio Fundação AstraZeneca.

5- Dias, S., Matos, M.G., Gonçalves, A. (2007) “Percepção dos adolescentes acerca da influência dos pais e pares nos seus comportamentos sexuais”. Análise Psicológica, Série XXIV (4).

6- Dias, S. & Gonçalves, A. (2007). Migração e Saúde. Migrações, 1, 15-26.

7- Dias, S., Matos, M. G., & Gonçalves, A. (2007). Estudo dos comportamentos sexuais em jovens escolarizados: Implicações para a Promoção da Saúde Sexual. Revista Lusófona de Ciências da Mente e do Comportamento -

8- Biscaia A. (2006) A reforma do pensamento em saúde (editorial). Rev Port Clin Geral 22:63-4. Disponível em: http://www.apmcg.pt/document/71479/878517.pdf

9- Sena, C., Ferrinho P., Miguel, JP. (2006). Planos e programas de saúde em Portugal: questões metodológicas e macroanálise dos programas nacionais. Revista Portuguesa de Saúde Pública; 24 (1): 5-19

10- Conceição C, Fronteira I, Hipólito F, Van Lerberghe W, Ferrinho P (2005). Os grupos Alfa e a adesão ao Regime Remuneratório Experimental. Revista Portuguesa de Clínica Geral; 21; 45-59.

Other publications International 

1- Varandas, L., Vandunem, J., Bechimol, C., Quinhentos, V., Ferrinho, P., Gonçalves, L., Bernardino, L. (2007). Tratamento efectivo na malária com moderada/alta parasitémia, em crianças, com uma toma diária de quinino em Luanda, Angola. Acta Med Angolana, 16, p.15-20.

2- Dias, S. (2007). Sexual Health Promotion and HIV/AIDS Prevention. In T. Rhodes (Eds), Focus on Adolescent Behavior Research. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers Inc.

3- Fernandes, A., Backstrom, B., Padilla, B., Malheiros, J., Perelman, J. & Dias, S. (2007). Conceptual Framework. In A. Fernandes, M. Carballo, J. Malheiros, J. Pereira Miguel (Editors), Challenges for health in the age of migration (pp. 16-25). London: Pro-Brook Publishing.

4- Dussault, G., Letourmy, A, Fournier, P. (eds) (2006). L’Assurance maladie en Afrique francophone, Washington, World Bank (HNP Series) ISBN 10-8213-6617-3

5- Elzinga, G., Dussault, G., Figueroa, J.I., (2006). Workforce Constraints in Tuberculosis, in Raviglione, M: (ed.), Tuberculosis: A Comprehensive International Approach, Third Edition, London, Taylor and Francis CRC Press, pp. 1041-1058 (ISBN: 0849392713

6- Dussault, G., Dovlo, D., Habte. D. (2006). “The imperatives for research on the healthworkforce in Africa” in: Matlin, S. (ed.) Global Forum Update on Research for Health, vol.3, Pro-Book Publishing Ltd, London, pp.90-92

7- Zé-Zé, L., Gonçalves, L., Amaral-Turkman, M.A. (2006) Physical and Genetic Mapping in Whole Genome Sequencing Era: an Overview. In Statistics in Genomics and Proteomics (W. Urfer and M.A Amaral Turkman (Eds)), p. 35-45, CIM Editions. (http://www.aim.estt.ipt.pt= jmmp=CIM=Files=completo.pdf)

8- Encarnação, F., Gonçalves, L., Campino, L., Cristovão, J.M. and Oliveira, M.R. (2006) Latent Class Analysis to Evaluate the Accuracy of Diagnostic Tests for Leishmaniasis. In Statistical Models and Methods for Biomedical and Technical Systems (Vonta, F. (Eds.)). p. 281-286. European Seminar & University of Cyprus.

9- Amaral Turkman, M.A, Gonçalves, L., Zé-Zé, L. (2006) A Full Bayesian Approach to Physical Maps of Circular Genomes- Application to the Genome of O. oeni strain GM. In IWSM 2006, Proceedings of the 21st International Workshop on Statistical Modelling (edited by John Hinde, Jochen Einbeck and John Newell), p. 65-69.

10- Elzinga G, Dieleman M, Dussault G, Chowdurhy M., (2005). Workers for Priorities in Health. KIT Publishers Amsterdam, ISBN 90-6832-641-4

Master and Ph.D. thesis completed

None (Master programme started in 2006, first graduates in 2008)

Organization of conferences

2007:

Scientific and Organising Commission of the “2nd Forum of Primary Health Care – The new Health Centre – Motivated Professionals, Satisfied Citizens”. Health Systems Unit of the IHMT and Missão para os Cuidados de Saúde Primários (Lisbon, 21 November)

Scientific and Organising Commission of the 5th Epidemiology Congress “The health of Men” (Lisbon, 13-16 November)

Scientific Commission of the “European Workshop on Health Inequalities”, promoted by the Portuguese Epidemiology Association (Lisbon, 16 November)

Organising Commission of the Symposium: ”National experiences in adressing adverse trends affecting the health workforce”. Health Systems Unit of the IHMT, AGO and Centre de Sociologie et de Démographie Médicales (Lisbon, 10-12 October)

Technical Coordination of the Round Table “Health Systems in the Support of Health Strategies”, inserted in the initiative Health Strategies in Europe, within the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council (12, 13 de July, FIL.

Organising Commission of the Workshop “Primary Health Care at the Azores”. Partnership between Secretaria Regional dos Assuntos Sociais, Direcção Regional da Saúde dos Açores and a Health Systems Unit of the IHMT (Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira, 4-5 June)

Organising Commission of the Workshop “The Management of Health Information in Canada: elements for the development of Health Information Systems in Portugal”, Partnership between the IHMT and AstraZeneca Foundation (8 May)

Organising Commission of the International Conference “Information Systems in Health – from the politician to the manager, from the professional to the citizen”. Partnership between Alto Comissariado da Saúde, IHMT and AstraZeneca Foundation (7 May)

2006:

Organising Commission of the 4th Epidemiology Congress “Flu: on the way of pandemics” (Lisbon, 11-13 October)

Organising Commission of the Workshop “Developments in Primary Care Management”, associated to the Conference Cycle “Primary Health Care in Portugal and in the World”. Partnership between the IHMT and AstraZeneca Foundation (20 April)

2005:

Organising Commission of the Workshop about “Policy and Human Resources Development for Portuguese Speaking African Countries”. Sandton, South Africa (11-21 Outuber)

Organising Commission of the Seminar about “Maternal and Child Health and Safe Motherhood”. Partnership with WHO, all CPLP and Macau (4-5 July)

Scientific and Organising Commission of the VII International Garcia de Orta Conference: Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Women. Partnership with Associação para o Desenvolvimento e Cooperação Garcia de Orta, Sexually Transmitted Diseases Unit of the IHMT. Financed by Glaxo e British Council (8 March)

Organising Commission of the Workshop on Statistics in Genomic and Proteomics

Organising Commission (in collaboration with IST, UTL) of the day dedicated to “Statistics, Genetics and Medicine, within Ciência Viva Program.

Internationalization 

The Public Health group has established collaborations with a number of foreign institutions in Portuguese-speaking African countries and in Europe:

With the Department of Public Health Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo (Mozambique): research on the impact of Global Health Initiatives on the national health sercices systems in Africa;. research on the profile and expectations of medical students; development of a post-graduate program in public health; research on human health resources policies.

With the Centre for Medical Education (CEDUMED), Faculty of Medicine, Agiostinho Neto University in Luanda (Angola): research on the impact of Global Health Initiatives on the national health services systems in Africa; ;. research on the profile and expectations of medical students; research on human health resources policies.

with the Ministry of Health of Guinea Bissau for the creation of an Institute of Public Health and in health policy development

with the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape and the School of Health Systems and Public Health, University of Pretoria (South Africa): research on the impact of Global Health Initiatives on the national health services systems in Africa.

With the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp (Belgium) and the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin (Ireland): research on the impact of Global Health Initiatives on the national health services systems in Africa.

Future collaborations include:

Participation in a European Network of research on the health of migrants.

multi-country study on health services delivery in islands in Europe

with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies : research on the health workforce

With Universities of Keele, Bocconi (Milan), Semmelweiss (Hungary), the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Madrid): development of a multi-university program of research and training on health workforce policies and management.

[Information accessed: 01-11-2008 10:59:48 on www.fct.mctes.pt]
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Future Research

Objectives:

The following new projects involve members of the group and are already funded or have submitted applications for funding:

“Models of Latent Classes in Tropical Health”, ref. PTDC/SAU-ESA/81240/2006”, under the responsibility of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit of the IHMT, coordination by L. Gonçalves, in partnership with Instituto Superior Técnico – UTL – Applied Mathematical Centre and financed by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

“Support in the Development of Sentinel Locations for the Surveillance of STD, including HIV and syphilis in pregnant women”, under the responsibility of the Health Systems Unit of the IHMT, coordination by P. Ferrinho, in partnership with the Republic of Guiné Bissau and CNLCS and financed by MSD, CNLCS.

The migration of health professionals in the European region, coordination by G. Dussault, funded by WHO

“European Network for the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health of Refugees & Asylum Seekers in Europe and Beyond”, under the responsibility of the LA / IHMT, coordination by Sónia Dias, in partnership with Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Holland and financed by the EU.

“Difficulties and Expectations of Medicine Students form 3 Portuguese Speaking African Countries (Angola, Mozambique and Guiné Bissau), coordination by P. Ferrinho

6-“Statistical Modulation in Genetics and Environment – MEGA”, ref. PTDC/MAT/64353/2006, under the responsibility of the Centro de Estatística e Aplicações of the University of Lisbon, coordination by K.Turkman, FCUL and financed by FCT

“Sexually transmitted infections in the school population of the Great Lisbon area”, under the responsibility of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Unit of the IHMT, coordination by F. Pereira.

“Attitudes and representations towards health and illness and healthcare access in immigrant populations: towards immigrant-friendly health services”, ref. IME/SAU-ESA/81760/2006, coordination by S. Dias and financed by FCT

European Network for the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Europe and Beyond. (EN-HERA!). Coordenação: International Centre for Reproductive Health, Ghent University. Funding: EC/European Refugee Fund (2006-2008).

Development of a frame of reference in prevention of sexual and gender-based violence against and among young refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors in the European reception and asylum sector. Coordenação: International Centre for Reproductive Health, Ghent University. Associate Partner: IHMT/CMDT, coordination by Sónia Dias. Application for funds to European Commission, DAPHNE III.

Development of a training and resource package for improving the sexual and reproductive health of people living with HIV/AIDS (Eurosupport 6 (ES 6). Coordenação: Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp. Associate Partner: IHMT/CMDT, coordination by Sónia Dias. Application for funds to European Commission, PHEA.

Extension of the study of the satisfaction of users and health workers in health centers in Portugal and to identify its determinants and time trends. Application for funds to Ministry of Health of Portugal-

For the next 3 years, the Public health group’s program of work includes.

To complete the study of the assessment of the impact of Global Health Initiatives on policy, planning, management and organization of health services in 3 Southern Africa countries (Angola, Mozambique, South Africa). Field work, data analysis, publications of country and comparative analysis.

To complete the Project “Epidemiology and Control of Leptospirosis in the Azores".

To launch and advance the projects listed above under Future Research

Funding

EU; MSD, CNLCS; ICN; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Special Requirements

The Public health team would benefit from the inclusion of a social epidemiologist and of a health economist in the group of researchers.

Research Group Information (RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3139)

Designation:

Health Education

Principal Investigator:

Maria Margarida Nunes Gaspar de Matos

Location of Group:

Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Keywords:

Health Behaviour and Education, Quality of life ,Competence & Resilience ,Youth, School & Families

Funding, sources, dates

1-Projects HBSC and Kidscreen (1994-2008): -FCT - Social adventure and health - POCTI/PSI/374861/2002; FCT – Etnicity and VIH prevention- PSIDA/PSI/49649/2003; Coordenação da Infecção VIH ,2003, 2005; Instituto da Droga e Toxicodependência, 2005

2-Project PeerDriveclean (2005-2008); European Commission, DGSanco - 2005

3- Project Risk and Resilience (2005-2008): FCT - RIPD/PSI/63669/2005

Group Team

List of Researchers in the Group:

001. Maria Margarida Nunes Gaspar de Matos ( Cat.: Professor Associado Gr. Acad.: Agregação )

002. Maria Celeste Rocha Simões ( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/o PhD):

001. António Rodrigues Borges da Silva ( Cat.: Assistente de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

002. Gina Maria Quinás Tomé ( Cat.: Assistente de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

003. Inês Nobre Martins Camacho ( Cat.: Assistente de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

004. Susana Maria Mariano dos Santos Veloso ( Cat.: Assistente de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

005. Tania Gaspar Sintra dos Santos ( Cat.: Assistente de Investigação Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

Objectives & Achievements

Objectives:

Health Behaviours in School aged Children (HBSC) a WHO study (PI Margarida Gaspar de Matos)

Health Behaviours in School aged Children (HBSC) a WHO cross sectional and multi-cultural study (www.hbsc.org; www.aventurasocial.com ; http://cmdtpt.ihmt.unl.pt/gestcont/research). This research aims to gain knowledge about adolescents' health related behaviours and to develop intervention programs focusing on the health promotion in Portuguese public schools, and at community level.

Risk & Adolescence (PI Celeste Simões)

www.aventurasocial.com ; http://cmdtpt.ihmt.unl.pt/gestcont/research

This research aims to gain knowledge of adolescents with special educational needs (SEN) health related behaviours and develop an intervention program focus on the health promotion for these adolescents.

Kidscreen - Health related quality of life in children - an EC multi-cultural study (PI Margarida Gaspar de Matos)

www.aventurasocial.com ; www.kidscreen.org

This research aims to gain knowledge about children and adolescents' health related quality of life, matching their perceptions with their parents'. The final aim is to develop intervention programs focusing on health related quality of life in Portuguese public schools and at community level. Includes the edition of a manual. Includes training of health and education professionals and working with families. Includes a more systemic work at institutional and policy level.

PeerDriveClean- A peer education approach to a safer driving, an EC study (PI Margarida Gaspar de Matos)

www.aventurasocial.com ; /cmdtpt.ihmt.unl.pt/gestcont/research/ ; www.peer-projekt.de

This study aims at developing, implementing and evaluating a peer education approach to a safer driving, without alcohol, drugs, violence and unnecessary risk taking. Includes training of "peers" and supervision of peers' classes in driving schools and evaluation of the procedure.

Project CAJ- Youth' Friends Center (Luanda- ANGOLA) - VIH prevention and counselling

(collaborating with Institut Pasteur ( Dr Kemal Cherabi et Dr Jean Elie Malkin) and TOTAL This study aims at developing, implementing and evaluating a clinical, educational and "peer education" approach to prevent VIH infection an support VIH infected Includes the training and supervision of health professionals, teachers and peers ( "activistas") /cmdtpt.ihmt.unl.pt/gestcont/research/

Main Achievements:

1 Professorship exam, 8 Master thesis and 1 PhD thesis

4 national wide surveys (2 HBSC, 1 Kidscreen, 1 SEN )

1 regional HBSC survey (Lisbon-Migrants)

PhD Grants (FCT)

International and National Publications

International and National Communications

Organization of one International Meeting

Participation in international networks

Projects continuity in 2008-2010

Interactive informative and pedagogical Webpage

Collaboration with national media: Invited to TV news, TV health programs, radio programs, Daily news.

Collaboration with national policy: Ministry of Education Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice

[Information accessed: 01-11-2008 11:00:51 on www.fct.mctes.pt]
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Group Productivity

Publications in peer review Journals

• Matos, M.G., Calmeiro, L., Baptista-Foguet, J., Loureiro, N. & Mota, J. (2007). Health related behaviours: grouped risks across adolescence. Revista Brasileira de Terapias Cognitivas, Vol. 3, I., 12 – 27 (IF: 0.1875; Times Cited: N/A)
• Camacho, I & Matos, M.G. (2007). Práticas parentais educativas, fobia social e rendimento académico em adolescentes. Revista Brasileira de Terapias Cognitivas, Vol. 3, II., 25 – 33. (IF: 0.1875; Times Cited: N/A)
• Gonçalves, S. & Matos, M.G. (2007). Bullying in Schools: Predictors and Profiles. Results of the Portuguese Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey. International Journal of Violence and School 4, 91-108. (IF:N/A)
• Matos, M.G., Dadds, M. & Barrett, P. (2006). Family-school issues and the mental health of adolescents: post hoc analysis from the Portuguese National Health Behaviour in School aged children survey, Journal of Family Studies, (2), 261-274. (IF:N/A
• Gaspar, T., Matos, M.G., Ribeiro, J.L. & Leal, I. (2006). Qualidade de vida e bem-estar em crianças e adolescentes. Revista Brasileira de Terapias Cognitivas, Brasil, 2 (2) 47-60. (IF: 0.1875; Times Cited: N/A)
• Kuntsche, E., Pickett, W., Overpeck, M., Craig, W., Boyce, W. & Matos M. G (2006). Television viewing and forms of bullying among adolescents from eight countries. Journal Adolescent Health. 39(6): 908-15. ( IF: 2.387; Times Cited: 0 )
• Tomé, G. & Matos, M.G. (2006). Depressão, Rendimento Escolar e Estratégias de Coping em Adolescentes. Revista Brasileira de Terapias Cognitivas, Vol.2, 1, 85-94. (IF: 0.1875 Times Cited: N/A)
• Fonseca, H. & Matos, M. G. (2005). Perception of overweight and obesity among Portuguese adolescents: na overview of associated factors. The European Journal of Public Health, 15 (3): 323 – 328. (IF: 1.910; Times Cited: 8 )
• Santos, MP., Matos, M. G. & Mota, J. (2005). Seasonal variations in Portuguese adolescents organized and non organized physical activities. Pediatric Exercise Science, 17, 390 – 398, Human Kinetics, Inc. (IF 0.761; Times Cited: 2)
• Matos, M.G., Barret, P., Dadds, M. & Shortt, A. (2003). Anxiety, depression and peer relationships during adolescence: Results from the Portuguese national health behaviour in school-aged children survey. European Journal of Psychology of Education, Vol. 18 (1), 3-14. (IF:N/A)

Other publications National  

Books/published reports

• Simões, C. (2007). Comportamentos de risco na adolescência. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian / Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.
• Matos, M.G.; Simões, C.; Tomé, G; Camacho, I; Gaspar, T; Ferreira, M, Diniz, J & Aventura Social (2006). A saúde dos adolescentes Portugueses (hoje e em 8 anos) – FMU/UTL & CMDT/UNL– HBSC/OMS in www.aventurasocial.com e www.fmh.utl.pt/aventurasocial
• Matos, M. G. (Coord) (2005). Comunicação, Gestão de Conflitos e Saúde na Escola, Lisboa: Edições FMH.
• Matos, M.G., Gonçalves, A. & Gaspar, T. (2005). Aventura Social, Etnicidade e Risco / Prevenção Primária do VIH em Adolescentes de Comunidades Migrantes. IHMT/UNL – FMU/UTL – HBSC/OMS.
• Matos, M.G. ; Simões, C.;; Gaspar, T; Lebre, P., Diniz, J & Aventura Social (2003). A saúde dos adolescentes Portugueses ( 4 anos depois) – FMU/UTL & CMDT/UNL– HBSC/OMS.

Papers

• Gaspar, T. & Matos, M.G. (2007). Comportamentos de Saúde de Adolescentes Migrantes e o Efeito Protector da Relação com os Avós. Revista de Estudos Demográficos, 41, 37-51
• Reis, M. & Matos, M.G. (2007). Conhecimentos e Atitudes face ao uso de Métodos Contraceptivos e à Prevenção das IST's em Jovens. Revista Lusófona de Ciências e Tecnologias da Saúde, 4 (1):23-35.
• Camacho, I. & Matos, M.G. (2006). Práticas parentais, escola e consumo de substâncias em jovens. Psicologia: Saúde e Doenças (7) 2. pp 317-327.
• Gaspar, T., Matos, M.G., Gonçalves, A., Ferreira, M. & Linhares, F. (2006). Comportamentos Sexuais, Conhecimentos e Atitudes face ao VIH/Sida em adolescentes migrantes. Psicologia, Saúde e Doenças, 7 (2), 299-316.
• Matos, M.G. (2004). Psicologia da Saúde, saúde pública e saúde internacional. Análise Psicológica, 3 (XXII): 449 – 462

Other publications International

• Simões, C., Matos, M. G. & Batista-Foguet, J. (2007). Lifestyles in Adolescence: Substance Use and Violence. Active Lifestyles: The impact of Education and Sport. Lisboa: FMH/CDI, 411 – 422.
• Matos, M.G. & Diniz, J. (2007). Portuguese adolescents: active lifestyles and health. Active Lifestyles: The impact of Education and Sport. Lisboa: FMH/CDI, 57 – 68.
• Dias, S., Matos, M.G. & Gonçalves, A. (2006). AIDS – related stigma and attitudes towards AIDS – infected people among adolescents. AIDS Care, 18 (3), 208-214.
• Mota, J., Ribeiro, J., Carvalho, J. & Matos, M. G.(2006). Actividade física e qualidade de vida associada à saúde em idosos participantes em programas regulares de actividade física. Revista Brasileira de Educação Física e Esporte, Vol. 20, n.º3.
• Dias, S., Matos, M.G. & Gonçalves, A. (2005). Preventing HIV transmission in adolescents: an analysis of the Portuguese data of Health Behaviour School Aged Children. The European Journal of Public Health, 15 (3): 300 – 304.
• Due, P., Holstein, BE., Lynch, J., Diderichsen, F., Nic Gabhain, S., Scheidt, P., Currie, C. & al: Matos, M.G. in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children Bullying Working Group (2005). Bullying and Symptoms among School-Aged Children: International Comparative Cross-Sectional Study in 28 Countries. The European Journal of Public Health, 15:128 – 132.
• Feitosa, F., Matos, M.G., Prette, Z. & Prette, A. (2005). Suporte social, nível socioeconómico e o ajustamento social e escolar de adolescentes portugueses. Temas em Psicologia, Vol. 13, N.º 2, 129-138
• Nansel, TR., Craig, W., Overpeck, M., Saluja, G. Ruan, J. & al, Matos, M.G. in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Bullying Analyses Working Group (2004). Cross-national consistency in relationship between bullying behaviours and psychosocial adjustment. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med; 158: 760 – 765.
• Matos, M.G., Simões, C. & Sacchi, D. (2004). Adolescenti, stili di vita e salute: Un progetto intervento. Psicoterapia Cognitiva e Comportamentale., 10,(2) (133-150)

Master and Ph.D. thesis completed (3000 ca.)

• Celeste Simões, PhD thesis (2005) “Risk behaviours in adolescence – Study of risk and protective factors for health in school-aged adolescents with different life trajectories in their significant life contexts”
• Tania Gaspar ,(2004) Master Thesis : Alcohol use in Migrant Adolescents: Adolescents and Professional perception of protective and risk factors”
• Nuno Loureiro (2004) Master thesis: Adolescents health : Physical activity and sedentary behaviours.
• Susana Veloso (2005) Master thesis, Determinants of Physical Activity and leisure in adolescents from Oeiras
• Inês Camacho (2004) Master thesis: Parental practices and Social phobia in school aged adolescents
• António Silva, Master Thesis (2005). Resilience and emotional intelligence
• Gina Tomé (2005) Master thesis, Depression, Academic Achievement and Adolescents Coping Strategies
• Marta Reis, Master Thesis ( 2006) – Sexual health promotion in Portuguese students
• Lúcia Ramiro , Master Thesis (2006) – Sexual education knowledge, attitudes and sexual behaviours in Portuguese adolescents

Organization of conferences (2000 ca.)

Annual meeting of HBSC/WHO, Oeiras: Portugal – October 2007 ( www.hbsc.org; www.aventurasocial.com)

Government/Organization contract research 

IDT – National Institut For Drugs and Drug addition – Study of substance use -indicators and trends 1998-2002-2006 (based on HBSC/WHO)

CNIVIH – National Coordination of the VIH infection – Study of sexual behaviour and VIH knowledge and beliefs - indicators and trends 2002-2006 ( based on HBSC/WHO)

GTES – Ministry of Education – Health Education in Portuguese Schools – Design, implement and evaluate health education in Portuguese Schools (Comission member Margarida Gaspar de Matos)

Internationalization

Health Behaviours in School aged Children (HBSC) a WHO study & international network

www.hbsc.org

Health Behaviours in School aged Children (HBSC) a WHO cross sectional and multi-cultural study . This European network aims to gain knowledge about adolescents' health related behaviours and to develop intervention programs focusing on the health promotion in Portuguese public schools, and at community level. Includes the edition of several manual covering different topics of adolescents' health.

Kidscreen - Health related quality of life in children - an EC multi-cultural study & networl

www.kidscreen.org

This research aims to gain knowledge about children and adolescents' health related quality of life, matching their perceptions with their parents'. The final aim is to develop intervention programs focusing on health related quality of life in Portuguese public schools and at community level. Includes the edition of a manual. Includes training of health and education professionals and working with families. Includes a more systemic work at institutional and policy level.

PeerDriveClean- A peer education approach to a safer driving, an EC study & network

www.peer-projekt.de

This study aims at developing, implementing and evaluating a peer education approach to a safer driving, without alcohol, drugs, violence and unnecessary risk taking. Includes training of "peers" and supervision of peers' classes in driving schools and evaluation of the procedure.

Project CAJ- Youth' Friends Center (Luanda- ANGOLA) - VIH prevention and counselling

Collaborating with Institut Pasteur and TOTAL

This study aims at developing, implementing and evaluating a clinical, educational and "peer education" approach to prevent VIH infection an support VIH infected Includes the training and supervision of health professionals, teachers and peers ("activistas") /cmdtpt.ihmt.unl.pt/gestcont/research/

[Information accessed: 01-11-2008 11:00:51 on www.fct.mctes.pt]
[FCT - Avaliação de Laboratórios Associados 2008 | Form locked: False]

Future Research

Objectives:

HBSC 4Th wave – 2010 ( www.hbsc.org and www.aventurasocial.com ) “PeerDriveclean II “– Safer driving and recreational settings- DGSanco www.peer-projekt.de

Longitudinal study Action-research – Casa Pia de Lisboa

GTES – Ministry of Education – Health Education in Portuguese Schools – Design, implement and evaluate health education in Portuguese Schools

Continuity of ongoing research projects -

New project “Aventura Social na Casa Pia de Lisboa” - Aims at designing, implementing and evaluating a action-research that can identify and promote interventions in order to promote health behaviours and pro-social behaviour in risk children and adolescents aged 3 to 15 and their teachers, parents and educators.

Funding

HBSC 4Th wave – 2010 ( www.hbsc.org and www.aventurasocial.com ) – funding Ministry of Education

“PeerDriveclean II “– Safer driving and recreational settings- funding DGSanco

Longitudinal study Action-research – funding Casa Pia de Lisboa

GTES – Ministry of Education – Health Education in Portuguese Schools – Design, implement and evaluate health education in Portuguese Schools – funding Ministry of Education

Previous publications in the area

Matos, M.G.; Simões, C.; Foguet, JB. & Cottaux, J. (under revision). Facteurs personnels et facteurs sociaux associés à la perception de santé et à la perception de bonheur, dans une population adolescente non clinique. L'Encephale.

Matos, M.G., Gaspar, T., Simons-Morton, B., Reis, M. & Ramiro, L. (in press). Communication about Information about "Safer Sex", Journal of Poverty.(USA)

Gaspar, T., Ribeiro, J., Leal, I. Matos, M. G. & Ferreira, A. (in press). Adaptação e Validação da Escala de Satisfação com o Suporte Social para Crianças e Adolescentes. Spanish Journal of Psychology.

Matos, M.G., Baptista, I.; Simões, C.; Gaspar, T. et al. (2008). Portugal: from research to practice – promoting positive health for adolescents in schools. In Social cohesion for mental well-being among adolescents. WHO/HBSC FORUM 2007.

Ramiro, L. & Matos, M.G. (2008). Percepções de Professores Portugueses sobre Educação Sexual. Revista de Saúde Pública, 42 (3 ou 4) (Brasil).

Simões, C., Batista-Foguet, J.M., Matos, M., & Calmeiro, L. (2008). Alcohol use and abuse in adolescence: Proposal of an alternative analysis. Child: Care, Health and Development, 34(3), 291-301.

Simões, C., Matos, M. G., Tomé, G. & Ferreira, M., (2008). Impact of Negative Life Events on Positive Health in a population of adolescents with special needs, and protective factors. Journal of Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapies, 8, 1, 53-65.

Ravens U. et al. (Matos, M.G. in HBSC Positive Health Group) (2008). An international scoring system for self-reported health complaints in adolescents. The European Journal of Public Health, Advance Access published online on February 5, 2008.

Research Group Information (RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3141)

Designation:

Biotechnology

Principal Investigator:

Carlos Manuel Mendes Novo

Location of Group:

Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Keywords:

Monoclonal antibody ,Biochemistry ,Protein engineering ,Applied Immunology

Funding, sources, dates

Funding of the research activity was obtained through the submission of projects to national and international funding agencies. At national level by submission of candidatures to FCT Agency, throughout the POCTI and PTDC programs, AGRO program from MADRP Ministry, IDEIA program from the Agency for the Development and Innovation (ADI) and at the international level to the INCO-DEV action of the 6º Framework Program.

The funding for human resources and training was obtained by submission to FCT of candidatures for PhD fellowship grants and by submission to PEPAP and IEFP programs of candidatures for professional training. At international level the funding was obtained from Leonardo Da Vinci (Lise-Meitner-School, Berlin, Germany), Marie Curie (Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee Scotland), COST actions and Windsor Treaty fellowship grants.

During the period 2003-2007 the funding obtained by UTPAM, excluding staff salary, was: 407 992 Euros (61%) from Research projects, 204 390 Euros (31%) from PhD and other grants fellowships and 55 406 Euros (8%) from PIDDAC, in a total of 667 788 Euros.

[Information accessed: 01-11-2008 11:02:21 on www.fct.mctes.pt]
[FCT - Avaliação de Laboratórios Associados 2008 | Form locked: False]

Group Team

List of Researchers in the Group:

001. Ana Isabel Amaro Goncalves Domingos ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

002. Carlos Manuel Mendes Novo ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/o PhD):

001. ANA MARIA BUTTLE DE MENDONCA MOURAO POSSIDONIO DE ARMADA ( Cat.: Investigador Auxiliar Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

002. Carla Correia Gonçalves da Costa ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

003. Cristina Isabel Correia de Almeida Costa ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

004. Raquel de Sá da Silva Laires ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

005. Tiago Miguel Lopes Martins ( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro) Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

Objectives & Achievements

Objectives:

Scientific Research on Biotechnology for Human and Veterinary health (Scientific Knowledge production)

Development of Human resources through Technical and University graduated and pos-graduated thesis

Technology transfer to companies through human resources skills development, analytical methods installation and optimization as well R&D activities through scientific projects in collaboration

Internationalization and networking activities. Participation on national and international networking, development of PhD University thesis and projects in collaboration with international research groups as well through acquisition and/or transfer of technical competences with different international groups

Main Achievements:

The main achievements under the CMDT activity were as follow:

Bovine Babesiosis: A new detection method based on PCR was developed for the molecular diagnosis of bovine babesiosis. Field samples from Mozambique were tested by a new method, and the results showed high prevalence of bovine babesiosis by Babesia bigemina and B. bovis. Babesial recombinant proteins were expressed in E. coli and the obtained proteins are being evaluated, for diagnosis purposes. as drug targets.

Malaria proteases: Cystein and aspartic proteases genes from Plasmodium chabaudi were sequenced (AC: AF427013, AY289110, AY289109) and recombinant protein produced in E. coli. Monoclonal antibodies were produced against recombinant proteases and used on western blotting analysis and immunofluorescence localization in different parasite life stages. One theoretical 3D model was also constructed by comparative modelling for the aspartic proteinase (PDB code: 1KBX)

Protein disulfide isomerase as therapeutic target: The genomic sequencing of DNA from P. chabaudi (AY769864) was carried out by our team as well its expression in E coli. Theoretical 3D models were also constructed by threading and comparative modelling (PDB codes: 1YK6, 1Y9N, 1Y9P)

Diagnosis of malaria in urine: Urine samples from Mozambique and Angola, were analysed by SDS/PAGE and immunoblot. A 37-40 kDa antigen was recognised by an anti-falciparum serum in just 50 % of the malaria patients urines collected in the presence of proteases inhibitors. This antigen wasn’t present in control urines. A parallel study has been carried out with a malaria mouse model. Mabs against P. berghei sporozoits were also produced.

Characterization of antigens in P. chabaudi: The results obtained using Monoclonal antibodies, phage display peptide library, IFA and computational approaches has identified an antigen present in all stages of the erythrocyte cycle of P. chabaudi parasite with a 235 kDa MW determined by SDS-PAGE

The results suggested that the recognized antigen in P. chabaudi by the Mab PcIIC6 cross react with P. falciparum. Combined results suggest that in P. falciparum the antigen would be Pf332. Preliminary "in vivo" studies in rodent model P. chabaudi, demonstrated that the Mab PcIIC6 reduce the progress of infection on a dose dependent manner at the initial stage of infection.

Trypanosome peptidase inhibitors: Monoclonal antibodies towards ISP2 and ICP were obtained and applied to immunolocalization on T. brucei. Mabs towards evansain, Oligo B and FL antigens were also obtained.

Group Productivity

Master and Ph.D. thesis completed

• Pesquisa de Hidratase de nitrilo em microrganismos. Caracterização genética do metabolismo de nitrilos em Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Pedro Lourenço, Biochemistry PhD, Biotechnology speciality, FCT_UNL, 2005
• Identificação e clonagem dos genes implicados na resistência ao tributiestanho em bactérias marinhas. Andreia Cruz. MsC in Molecular Microbiology. University of Aveiro, 2005.

Patents/prototypes (2000 ca.)

New recombinant gp36 protein comprises an ectopic polypeptide linked to a gp36 polypeptide or peptide fragment, useful as vaccines for detecting or diagnosing HIV-2 in a subject

Patent Number: WO2007141650-A2 Assignee: INST MEDICINA MOLECULAR

Inventor(s): TAVEIRA N; DE SOUSA BARROSO M H; MARCELINO J M

New HIV-2 peptide, e.g. gp36 glycoprotein or C2-C3 envelope protein, useful for diagnosing, detecting, treating or preventing an HIV-2 infection Patent Number: WO2007084021-A2; WO2007084021-A3 Assignee: INST MEDICINA MOLECULAR

Inventor(s): TAVEIRA N; DE SOUSA BARROSO M H; MARCELINO J M

Other publications National 

• Domingos, A., Gabriel, A., Silva Laires, R., do Rosário, V.E., Almeida, P.G., Novo, C., Silveira, H. (2004) Serine proteases involved in the mosquito immune response. 2nd Annual Meeting of the Portuguese Proteomic Network-Procura, Lisboa.
• Prata, S., Martins, T.M., Domingos, A., do Rosário, V.E., Novo, C. (2004) Protein disulfide isomerase as target for chemotherapy. Isolation and sequencing of the protein disulfide isomerase from Plasmodium chabaudi. PJ.46, XIV Congresso Nacional de Bioquímica, Vilamoura, Portugal.
• Nuno Taveira, José Marcelino, Helena Barroso, José Casanovas. Identificação de cinco casos de infecção por VIH-2 em Moçambique utilizando o novo teste ELISA-HIV2. Poster apresentado no Congresso Nacional dos Farmacêuticos 2007, Lisboa, 8 - 10 de Março de 2007.
• Rocha, C., Barroso, H., Bártolo, I., Marcelino., J, Rosado, L., Taveira, N. (2006) Evolução molecular do gene env do HIV-2 e colapso do sistema imunitário em doentes infectados por via vertical. Livro do 7 Congresso Virtual HIV/AIDS
• Gaspar, J., Custódio, A., Novo, C. (2006) Olive mild mosaic vírus antibodies from a phage display library, SI 3, XV Congresso Nacional de Bioquímica, Aveiro
• Morais, J.B., Martins, T.M., Marcelino, E., Cortes, H., Leitão, A., Novo, C. (2006) PDI is expressed in Besnoitia besnoiti. PI.15, XV Congresso Nacional de Bioquímica, Aveiro
• Marcelino, J., Doroana, M., Maltez, F., Rosado, L., Gomes, P., Nilsson, C., Taveira, N. (2006) Resposta humoral contra as glicoproteínas do invólucro gp125 e gp36 em doentes infectados por VIH-2: impacto da terapêutica antiretroviral. Poster P1.52, VIII Congresso Nacional de Doenças Infecciosas e 6º Congresso Nacional Sobre Sida, Porto.
• Rocha, C., Barroso, H., Bártolo, I., Marcelino, J., Rosado, L., Taveira, N. (2006) Evolução intra-hospedeiro do Env do VIH-2 na infecção vertical. Poster P1.19, VIII Congresso Nacional de Doenças Infecciosas e 6º Congresso Nacional Sobre Sida, Porto.
• Camacho, R., Oliveira, C., Martins, T, Reis, Y., Fazendeiro, I., Cortes, H., Leitão, A., Novo, C. (2005) Identificação de um gene putativo de isomerase dissulfureto (PDI) em Besnoitia besnoiti Congresso de Ciências Veterinárias, Poster 92, Lisboa
• Lopes, A., Teixeira e Costa, F., Carvalho, F., João Galvão, Mª, Novo, C. (2003) Detecção do depósito amilóide por cintigrafia com o componente P na polineuropatia amiloidótica familiar tipo português: Purificação do componente P. X Congresso Nacional de Biotecnologia-Biotec2003, Lisboa, Portugal.

Other publications International 

• Tiago M. Martins, Virgilio E. do Rosário, Luis Neves, Ana Domingos. Development of a new Hot-start PCR method for the detection of bovine Babesiosis in Mozambique. 3 rd general ICTTD Meeting, September 24-28, 2007, Zanzibar, Tanzânia
• Tiago M. Martins, Carlos Novo, Virgílio E. do Rosário, Ana Domingos. New cysteine proteases from the cattle parasite Babesia bigemina. Drug Development for Parasite Diseases - B22 Annual Congress, 2007, 10 – 13 June 2007, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK.
• Caldeira, R.L., Martins, T.M., Silveira, H., do Rosário, V., Novo, C., Domingos, A. (2006) Cystein Proteases from Plasmodium chabaudi an Important Target on Malaria Therapy, International Journal of Infectious Diseases , vol 10 - supl. 1: S298
• Caldeira, R., Martins, T., Silveira, H., do Rosário, V., Novo, C., Domingos, A. (2006) Chabaupain-1 a cystein protease can be detected in protein midgut extracts of Plasmodium infected anopheles mosquitoes. 3 rd Annual Joint Meeting Cost Action B22-Drug Discovery & Development for Parasitic Diseases, 1 a 4 Outubro, Atenas, Grécia
• Marcelino, J.M., Barroso, H., Gonçalves, F., Silva, S.M., Novo, C., Gomes, P., Camacho, R., Taveira, N. (2005) A sensitive and specific ELISA assay for the detection of the antibody response to the HIV-2 envelope glycoproteins in single and dual HIV infections. Poster (MoPe15.2C13), 3rd IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
• Pedro Borrego, José Marcelino, Cheila Rocha, Manuela Doroana, Fernando Maltez, Helena Barroso, Nuno Taveira.. Intra-patient molecular evolution of the env gene in HIV-2 infection. Poster P24 apresentado no XIII International Bioinformatics Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology, Lisboa, 2007.
• Nascimento, T, Cardoso, F, Rego, C., Oliveira, H. Presence of double-stranded RNA molecules in Cylindrocarpon liriodendri isolates infecting grapevine. Phytopathologia Mediterranea, 46,120. - COST Action 857, 4 st Annual Workshop Porticcio, Ajaccio, France, May 4-7 th, 2007.
• Custódio, A.I., Novo, C., Torrance, L, Ziegler, A. (2006) Single Chain Antibodies against Olive Trees Virus World Congress of International Association for Plant Tissue Culture and Biotechnology, Beijing, China
• Nascimento, T., Cardoso, F., Rego, C., Oliveira, H. (2006) Presence of double-stranded RNA molecules in Cylindrocarpon liriodendri isolates infecting grapevine. 5h International workshop on grapevine trunk disease, September, Califórnia, USA
• Rocha, C., Barroso, H., Bártolo, I., Marcelino, J., Rosado, L., Taveira, N. (2006) Genetic evolution of the HIV-2 env in a patient with fast disease progression. Poster X5-343, Keystone Symposia HIV Pathogenesis. Keystone Resort, Keystone, Colorado, EUA.

Organization of conferences

Proteases – PhD Program, Aveiro University, March 2007.

Humoral response as a marker of disease progression in HIV-2 infection. Conference at URIA/CPM/FFUL, June, Lisbon 2007.

Two Internal cycle conferences at Biotechnology Department of INETI in collaboration with the UBB Unity. 2005, 2006

Workshop about “Parasite Proteases” financed by the Windsor treaty- British Council with the participation of Colin Berry from the Cardiff University, UK.

Workshop about Monoclonal antibodies with the support of the Portuguese Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences with the participation of researchers from FFUL, FMV_UTL, DGV, INETI and Roche, 2006.

Conference about Crystalography. Margarida Archer from ITQB, INETI, 2004.

Industry contract research

Technology transfer is being done through PhD grant, with the company CERAMED on the field of the citotoxicity and immunologic response to medical devices composites; Through IDEIA project, on malaria diagnostic with ImunoStar company and through Lab facilities offer to DNAtech on the Veterinary pathologies diagnostic. There are ongoing contacts with other partners for submission of projects to the QREN program (Projects in co-promotion)

PhD fellowships grant

“Contribuição para o desenvolvimento de novos implantes biocompatíveis para regeneração óssea” Sofia Prata. (SFRH/BDE/15640/2006). Host institutions: UTPAM/INETI, Department of Materials Sciences, FCT/UNL and the CERAMED company. Supervisors: João Paulo Borges (FCT/UNL), Carlos Novo (INETI). Institution which confer the degree: FCT-UNL

Project

URMAL – Malaria diagnostic on urine samples (IDEIA program). (ImunoStar, INETI, CMDT_IHMT_UNL) 2006-2008.

Government/Organization contract research 

TRYPADVAC 2 - Development of an “anti-disease” vaccine and diagnostic tests for African trypanosomosis (6º PQ - INCO-DEV). (2005_2009) (http://trypadvac2.eventos.usb.ve/)

Cysteinic proteases from Plasmodium chabaudi, a animal modelfor human malaria: chemical and biochemical characterization (POCTI/SAU-ESP/57696/2004).

Malaria diagnostic in urine (IDEIA). (Agência de Inovação). (2006-2008).

Trypanosome brucei peptidase inhibitors. Imunolocalization, secretion and potential use as targets for therapy (PTDC/CVT/67086/2006)

The Proteases of Plasmodium chabaudi as targets for malária therapy, “design” of new inhibitors (POCTI/BME/43637/2002).

Large scale application of immunological methods to the detection and selection of Quercus suber producing high quality cork. Project nº 368 Agro program. (2004-2007) (INETI/EFN/FFUL/FloraSul)

Neutralization profiles of sera from HIV-2 infected individuals: relationship to viral load and to the genetic and phenotypic diversity of virus quasispecies (POCTI/ESP/48045/2002). (INETI/ADEIM)

Natural peptidase inhibitors of trypanosomatids “Collaboration on a grant form, Ref nº 1694” between the Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology from Glasgow University (UK) and UTPAM/INETI (2007).

Protein disulfide isomerase as a target for besnoitiosis therapy. Molecular characterization and studies of its role in infection and host response (PTDC/CVT/65674/2006). (INETI/IICT/U. Évora)

Validação e aplicação em larga escala de um “kit” de diagnóstico multiviral (Agro Ação 8.1 proj 73). (2003-2005) (INETI/U. Évora/EAN)

Internationalization

Through participation on 6º FP project, COST actions, PhD mix fellowship grants, Leonardo da Vinci and Marie Curie fellowship grants and international networks. Preliminary contacts with other partners for candidature submission to the 7º FP are in progress

Projects

TRYPADVAC - (6º FP / INCO-DEV).(2005-2009), the FCT project PTDC/CVT/67086/2006 and the “Grant Ref nº 1694” from the WCMP Glasgow University, UK (2007)

Mix PhD fellowships grants

Raquel Laires (SFRH/BD/32110/2006) Supervisors: Jeremy C Mottram (Glasgow University), Carlos Novo (INETI), Luis Távora Tavira (CMDT-LA_IHMT_UNL). Institution witch confer the degree: IHMT_UNL

Cristina Costa (SFRH/BD/40223/2007) Supervisors: Tansy Hammarton (Glasgow University), Carlos Novo (INETI), Virgilio do Rosário (CMDT-LA_IHMT_UNL). Institution witch confer the degree: IHMT_UNL.

Other PhD

“Human neutralizing antibody (IgG and IgA) response against the human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2): identification of neutralizing epitopes in primary virus isolates and production of human monoclonal antibodies against the envelope gp125 glycoprotein” José Marcelino. Supervisors: Rui Vitorino (FMUL), Nuno Taveira (ISCS do Sul), Charlotta Nilsson (SMI - Karolinska Institute, Suécia), Carlos Novo (INETI). Institution which confers the degree: FMUL._UL

“Produção e expressão de anticorpos recombinantes anti-Tobacco Necrosis Virus, para diagnóstico e indução de resistência em plantas de Nicotiana benthamiana e Olea europaea” Ana Isabel Custódio, (SFRH/BD/19040/2004). Supervisors: Ivone Clara (U. Évora), Carlos Novo (INETI). Institution which confer the degree: Évora. University. (Collaboration with the SCRI, Invergowrie, Dundee (UK), (5 months Marie Curie grant).

“Identificação de proteases como alvos de diagnóstico e terapia em babesiose bovina” Tiago Martins (SFRH/BD/19059/2004). Supervisors: Ana Domingos (INETI), Virgílio do Rosário (CMDT-IHMT), Luís Neves (Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique). Institution which confer the degree: IHMT_UNL.

Leonardo da Vinci fellowship grants

3 months stage of students from the Lise-Meitner-School, Berlin, Germany: Sabrina Lachman (2007), Marleen Herschel (2006), Markus Hensel (2005).

Other technical stages

Three stages on phage display library technology of Pongwit Bualombai from the Department of Diseases Control of the Public health Ministery of Thailand (2004 and 2005) and Pannada Dhepakson, from NIH, Thailand (2003)

Several stages of UTPAM members team at international Research institutions: Karolinska Institute, Sweden (2004, 2005, 2006); Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, UK (2005, 2006); University Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique (2005); Cardiff University, UK (2003).

Future Research

Objectives:

To continue the actual research lines on Trypanosome peptidase inhibitors (6º FP TRYPADVAC and PTDC/CVT/67086/2006 projects and SFRH/BD/32110/2006); Babesiosis, by submission of a project candidature to FCT in collaboration with ITQB (Abel Oliva) as well through the submission of a mixed BD (SFRH/BD/48251/2008); Antigens from Plasmodium chabaudi through the submission of a project candidature to FCT and protein disulfide isomerise as target for therapy through the project PTDC/CVT/65674/2006 and the BD (SFRH/BD/31445/2006)

To develop the new following research lines:

“The role of humoral response in HIV-2 infection”

Abstract: Understanding how the IgG and IgA neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies evolves in HIV-2 infected individuals could provide new insights to explain the slow disease progression in HIV-2 positive patients and to help in development of an effective vaccine This research line has as main objectives: 1) to determine the role of autologous neutralizing antibody response in HIV-2 infected individuals; 2) to examine the epitope specificity of the serum neutralizing activity of IgG and IgA subtype in HIV-2 infected patients towards peptide epitopes in the C2V3 domains from the autologous primary isolate and 3) to develop new reagents that help in monitorization of HIV-2 infection.

Cell cycle and cytokinesis regulators in Trypanosoma brucei

Abstract: The cell biology of Trypanosoma. brucei is unusual and the mechanism of cytokinesis differs markedly from mammalian cells. It has previously been shown using RNAi that downregulation of PLK or MOB1 in bloodstream form T. brucei or TRACK in procyclic cells, inhibit cytokinesis at the level of furrow ingression. When RNAi of these proteins is induced, the population becomes enriched for post-mitotic cells, many of which contain furrows. This phenotype will be exploited in order to generate monoclonal antibodies against proteins involved in cytokinesis in T. brucei. Such monoclonal antibodies will not only be used as markers of trypanosome cytokinesis, but as tools to identify novel proteins involved in this process

Recombinant antibodies for therapy

Abstract: The recombinant antibody technology allowed to engineer the complex structure of an immunoglobulin in different formats, the most effective being the single-chain Fv (scFv). Also bispecific single-chain antibody fragments (biscFvs) by bridging target and effector cells results in target-cell destruction as reported in several models. Antibody expression in plants can be applied widely for research and diagnostic or therapy purposes

Parasite proteomic analysis for identification of new diagnostic/therapeutic molecules

Abstract: Proteomics to compare proteases profiles between infected and non-infected mosquitoes and identify key molecules/mechanisms that will contribute to a more efficient malaria control.

Proteomics of experimental animal model serum infected with P. chabaudi, Cryptosporidium parvum and Toxoplasma gondii in order to identify new target molecules for diagnostic.

Molecular and immunological approaches on the study of the prevalence of tick-transmitted diseases in Africa

Abstract: Ticks and tick–borne diseases (T&TBDs) are widespread in some African countries constituting a major obstacle to the development of a sound milk and meat industry. Epidemiological studies conducted so far highlighted the need for application of more specific and sensitive, reproducible and easy to perform techniques for diagnostic/prevalence studies.

Funding

The actual total funding for UTPAM (2008-2010) on the ongoing research line is circa 236 000 Euros. For new research lines (2009-2013) the funding and sources are as follows:

CELL CYCLE AND CYTOKINESIS REGULATORS IN TRYPANOSOMA BRUCEI

PhD fellowship Cristina Costa (SFRH/BD/40223/2007) in collaboration with the Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology from Glasgow University (Tansy Hammarton) and the CMDT/IHMT. Actual funding: 29 570 Euros. In preparation one project candidature for submission to FCT.

RECOMBINANT ANTIBODIES (SCFV) FOR THERAPY

Submitted one PhD fellowship candidature (SFRH/BD/46558/2008). In preparation two project candidatures for submission to FCT. One on scFv towards Cryptosporidium parvum and the second on the use of a biscFv recombinant antibody for therapy, both in collaboration with the UEI de “Protozoários Oportunistas/VIH e Outras Protozooses”/UPMM/IHMT

THE ROLE OF HUMORAL RESPONSE IN HIV-2 INFECTION

This research line was supported by the project (POCTI/ESP/48045/2002) in collaboration with the ADEIM of FFUL. In preparation project candidatures for submission to FCT.

Parasite proteomic analysis for identification of new diagnostic/therapeutic molecules

In preparation project candidatures for submission to FCT:

On malaria proteases, in collaboration with the UEI Malaria (H.Silveira) and INSA; On serum analysis of P. chabaudi, Cryptosporidium parvum and Toxoplasma gondii infected animal models in collaboration between UTPAM/INETI, CMDT/IHMT, UEI “Protozoários Oportunistas/VIH e Outras Protozooses”/UPMM/IHMT and a international partner.

Molecular and immunological approaches on the study of the prevalence of tick-transmitted diseases in Africa

Expected to be supported by the Khartoum University (Sudan)

Previous publications in the area

Borrego P, Marcelino JM, Rocha C, Doroana M, Antunes F, Maltez F, Gomes P, Novo C, Barroso H, Taveira N. (2008) The role of the humoral immune response in the molecular evolution of the envelope C2, V3 and C3 regions in chronically HIV-2 infected patients . Retrovirology 5:78 (IF 4.04)

Marcelino JM, Barroso H, Gomes P, Maltez F, Rosado L, Doroana M, Nilsson C, Taveira N. (2008) Evolution of the envelope-specific antibody response in HIV-2 infection: C2V3C3-specific IgG response is a marker of disease progression. AIDS (accepted).

Martins TM, Pedro OC, Caldeira RA, do Rosário VE, Neves L., Domigos A. (2008) Detection of bovine babesiosis in Mozambique by a novel semi-nested hot-start PCR method. Veterinary Parasitology 153:225-239.

Marcelino JM, Barroso H, Gonçalves F, Silva SM, Novo C, Gomes P, Camacho R, Taveira N. (2006) Use of a new dual-antigen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to detect and characterize the human antibody response to the human immunodeficiency virus type 2 envelope gp125 and gp36 glycoproteins. J Clin Microbiol. 44: 607-11. (IF 3.445)

Custódio AI, Novo C, Torrance L, Ziegler A. (2006) Single Chain Antibodies against Olive Trees Virus World Congress of International Association for Plant Tissue Culture and Biotechnology, Beijing, China.

Custódio A, Cardoso F, Novo C, Felix MR, Clara I. (2003) Isolation of scFv from TOMLISON I+J antibody library against Olive Latent virus 1. X Congresso Nacional de Biotecnologia-Biotec2003, Lisboa, Portugal.

Marcelino JM, Novo C, Pereira JM, Picotez F, Clemente A, Taveira N. (2001) Production and Characterization of a Mouse Monoclonal Antibody against the Gag p26 Protein of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2: Identification of a New Antigenic Epitope. AIDS Res and Hum Retroviruses 17:1279-1283. (IF 2.523)

Special Requirements

The main requirement is the establishment of full contracts with the actual PhD students after their final discussion in order that the knowledge and technical skills acquired do not be lost as well it could be applied to the development of research on these areas.

Research Group Information
(RG-LVT-Lisboa-750018-3140)

Designation:

Virology

Principal Investigator:

Celso Vladimiro Ferreira de Abreu Cunha

Location of Group:

Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical - Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Keywords:

Hepatitis D virus

,Nucleocytoplasmic transport

,HIV

,Molecular epidemiology

Funding, sources, dates

Gene expression changes induced by the hepatitis delta virus. I- Analysis of the cellular proteome. POCI/SAU-IMI/55112/2004. FCT/FEDER, 99.056,00 euro

EC (Multicenter projects SPREAD, EuroHIVResistance, CASCADE and CHAIN). The SPREAD project finished in 2005. The others are currently ongoing.

FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) (two grants for PhD abroad)

ANRS (Association Nacionale pour la Recherche du SIDA)

GlaxoSmithKline Foundation

[Information accessed: 01-11-2008 11:01:31 on www.fct.mctes.pt]
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Group Team

List of Researchers in the Group:

001. Celso Vladimiro Ferreira de Abreu Cunha

( Cat.: Professor Auxiliar

Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/PhD):

001. Perpetua da Conceicao Rodrigues Gomes Cavaco Silva

( Cat.: Investigador Principal

Gr. Acad.: Doutoramento )

List of Collaborators (w/o PhD):

001. Ricardo Jorge Gonçalves Ornelas Camacho

( Cat.: Investigador Principal

Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

002. Ana Leonor Vidal Gomes Casaca

( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro)

Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

003. Carolina Alpalhão Mantero de Mendonça Alves

( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro)

Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

004. Marta Maria Lavouras Mendes

( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro)

Gr. Acad.: Mestrado )

005. Natalia Maria Bezerra de Freitas

( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro)

Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

006. Sérgio Miguel Regufe da Mota

( Cat.: Não aplicável (bolseiro)

Gr. Acad.: Licenciatura )

[Information accessed: 01-11-2008 11:01:31 on www.fct.mctes.pt]
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Objectives & Achievements

Objectives:

HDV: To contribute to a deeper understanding of fundamental processes, at the molecular level, that mediates host-pathogen interactions.

HIV: Study of HIV-1 resistance to antiretrovirals, focusing on non-B genetic variants; study of HIV-2 resistance to antiretrovirals; molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 infection in Portugal; surveillance of resistance transmission.

Main Achievements:

This report concerns the activities of two subgroups studying HDV and HIV, respectively. The HIV subgroup, coordinated by R Camacho, integrated CMDT-LA since the beginning of the Center, and the HDV subgroup, coordinated by C Cunha, was integrated in CMDT-LA in 2006.

HDV: We have identified and characterized the nuclear localization signal (NLS) of the delta antigen showing that it consists of aa 66-75 (Alves et al.). We additionally identified a constitutive transport element (CTE) in the antigenomic RNA of the HDV also showing that it is localized in positions... (Freitas et al., manuscript in preparation). These two findings allowed us to identify and characterize the amino acid and nucleotide sequences, respectively, that mediate the nucleocytoplasmic traffic of HDV RNP particles during infection.

Moreover, we performed a comprehensive proteomic analysis of human liver cells transiently transfected with all the HDV components, separately, as well as of a HDV cDNA stably transfected cell line (Mota et al., J Prot. and Mota et al., submitted).This allowed us to get a global picture of gene expression changes, at the protein level, induced during HDV replication. Consequently, potential mechanisms of pathogenesis uncovered during this work can now more deeply be investigated.

HIV: The research performed by the HIV team led to the identification of novel HIV-1 resistance mutations and resistance pathways in subtypes A, C, F, G and CRF02_AG. Additionally, novel resistance mutations in HIV-2 were identified. The quantification of resistance transmission in Portugal as well as the characterization of HIV-1 genetic variants circulating in the country are also significant contributions of this team.

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Group Productivity

Publications in peer review Journals (3000 ca.) (Up to a max of 10. Always indicate at the end of the citation, impact factor of the journal (IF=) and number of citations (nº C=). Give title and full citation in original language. DO NOT translate)

Alves, C., Freitas, N., Cunha, C.. Characterization of the nuclear localization signal of the hepatitis delta virus antigen. Virology 370 (1): 12-21. (IF: 3.7; NC: 0)

Mota, S., Mendes, M., Penque, D., Coelho, A. V., Cunha, C.. Changes in the proteome of Huh7 cells induced by transient expression of hepatitis D virus RNA and antigens. Journal of Proteomics 71; 71-79. (IF: na)

Gomes P, Abecasis A, Almeida M, Camacho RJ, Mansinho K. “Transmission of HIV-2”, The Lancet Infect Dis. 2003 Nov; 3: 534-536. (IF: 10.5; NC: 7)

Abecasis A, Paraskevis D, Epalanga M, Fonseca M, Burity F, Bartolomeu J, Carvalho AP, Gomes P, Vandamme AM, Camacho RJ. HIV-1 genetic variants circulation in the North of Angola. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 5 (3), 231–237, 2005 (IF: 2.4)

Abecasis A, Deforche K, Snoeck J, Ghidey W, Carvalho AP, Gomes P, Camacho RJ, Vandamme A-M. Protease Mutation M89I/V is Linked to Therapy Failure in Patients Infected with the HIV-1 Subtypes C, F and G. AIDS 2005, 19: 1799-1806 (IF: 5.5; NC: 1)

Gomes P, Palma AC, Cabanas J, Abecasis A, Carvalho AP, Ziermann R, Diogo I, Gonçalves F, Lobo CS, Camacho RJ: Comparison of the COBAS TAQMAN HIV-1 HPS with VERSANT HIV-1 3.0 Assay (bDNA) for plasma RNA quantitation in different HIV-1 subtypes. J Virol Methods, 2006 (IF: 1.8; NC: 5)

Abecasis AB, Deforche K, Bacheler LT, McKenna P, Carvalho AP, Gomes P, Vandamme A-M, Camacho RJ: Investigation of Baseline Susceptibility to protease inhibitors in HIV-1 subtypes C, F G and CRF02_AG. Antiviral Therapy, 2006: 11(5): 581-9 (IF: 5.9; NC: 7)

Camacho RJ, Vandamme A-M: Antiretroviral Resistance in Different HIV-1 Subtypes: Impact on Therapy Outcomes and Resistance Testing Interpretation: Current Opinion on HIV & AIDS, 2007, 2:123-129 (IF: na)

Palma AC, Araujo F, Duque V, Borges F, Paixao MT, Camacho R; on behalf of the Portuguese SPREAD Network. Molecular epidemiology and prevalence of drug resistance-associated mutations in newly diagnosed HIV-1 patients in Portugal. Infect Genet Evol. 7 (2007) 391 – 398 (IF: 2.4; NC: 3)

J. Vercauteren, K. Deforche, K. Theys, M. Debruyne, J.L. Duque, S. Peres, A.P. Carvalho , K.Mansinho, A.-M. Vandamme, RJ. Camacho: The incidence of multidrug and full class resistance in HIV-1 infected patients is decreasing overtime (2001-2006) in Portugal. Retrovirology, 2008 5:12 (IF: 4.0; NC: 0)

Master and Ph.D. thesis completed (3000 ca.)

Marta Mendes – Influence of the HDV genomic and antigenomic and antigenomic RNA expression in human liver cells proteome. Master degree in Biotechnology, Instituto Superior Técnico.

Carolina Alves – Study of the nuclear import mechanism of the hepatitis delta virus antigen. Master degree in Biotechnology, Instituto Superior Técnico.

Sérgio Mota – Influence of siRNAs in the replication of hepatitis delta virus and analysis of gene expression in infected cells. PhD thesis, Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Patents/propotypes (2000 ca.)

Carvalhal, Ana Verónica; Lima, Carlos; Basto, Vera; Cunha, Celso; Escada, Pedro; Cruz, Helder; Cruz, Pedro. Adult human neural stem/progenitor cells from the olfactory epithelium and olfactory lamina propria, process for its obtention, proliferation in serum free culture medium and differentiation and utilization for transplantation. International Publication Number WO 2007/020611 A3

Organization of conferences (2000 ca.)

Co- Organization: V European HIV Drug Resistance Workshop, March 2007, Cascais, Portugal

Co-Organization: 13th International Workshop on virus evolution and molecular epidemiology; September 2007, Lisbon, Portugal,

Internationalization (2000 ca.) (Collaborative publication, Research, Graduate Training Networks or other forms of participation of the Research Group at the international level)

The hepatitis D subgroup established a permanent collaboration with the Department of Virology of the Fox Chase Cancer Centre, USA (Dr. John Taylor). In this context, a PhD student, Carolina Alves, started the work at Fox Chase aiming to characterize the HDV RNA transcription pre-initiation complexes. This work is planned for 24 months in the US laboratory and will then be completed in Lisbon. Additionally, both laboratories are working towards a comprehensive characterization of the gene expression changes induced during HDV replication using a recently developed Tet-inducible cell culture system developed in Taylor’s lab. Our group is performing the proteome analysis by LC-MS and the US group is performing microarray analysis. To perform the proteome analysis, collaboration was also established with the group of Jesus Vazquez in Madrid who developed specific software for data analysis of O18 labelled samples. Recently, this group established collaboration with the University of Heidelberg aimed to study intracellular virus traffic.

The HIV subgroup is a partner of the EC funded European projects SPREAD, EuroHIVResistance, CASCADE. Moreover, this team has two well established permanent collaborations with the Rega Institute of Virology, University of Leuven, Belgium, and the University Hospital Américo Boavida, Luanda, Angola. Occasional collaborations with the University of Stanford, CA, USA are also currently ongoing.

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Future Research

Objectives:

HDV - In the near future, we plan to continue the proteome analysis of HDV expressing cells using the Tet-inducible cell line above referred. This collaborative project will hopefully allow us to better characterize the mechanisms of replication and pathogenesis of the virus which may be indicative of a better and specific therapy not currently available. We additionally plan to start the characterization, including genotyping, of the circulating strains in Portugal using a collection of HBV positive sera (~1000) stored in our lab. Moreover, the investigation of the mechanisms of HDV RNA-directed RNA transcription will continue, also as a collaborative project with John Taylor’s lab in Philadelphia.

HIV - The future planned research activities of the HIV team include:

Association with the European network EURESIST.

Building of an European database for the study of antiretroviral resistance (EURESIST).

Continue ongoing research in HIV-1 and HIV-2 drug resistance, with novel targets (integrase, env).

Identification of resistance pathways in HIV-2.

Antiretroviral therapy in resource-poor settings.

Identification of the main problems and potential solutions for the treatment of HIV infections in resource poor settings, with a special focus of laboratory monitoring.

New research line:

Recently, a post-doc, Claudia Istrate, joined our group in order to implement a new rotavirus research line. Two main objectives are intended to be achieved: 1- Characterization of the circulating rotavirus strains in Portugal, Angola and Mozambique. This involves the participation of the Portuguese Paediatrics Society and the EuroRotaNet, the European rotavirus research network which we recently joined. Ultimately, we aim to understand the potential efficacy of the two commercial vaccines based on attenuated virus strains. We further aim to be able to identify possible genetic rearrangements between strains phenomena that already occurred and was described in Europe. This project involves also the collaboration of the London School of Tropical Medicine where the coordination of EuroRotaNet is currently based. 2- Investigation and development of a new vaccine based on virus-like particles. This project, started by CI during the post-doc period in Lijkoping University, Sweden, will continue now in Lisbon with the collaboration of the Swedish group.

Funding, source, dates (indicate in full including amount of current and pending funding)

Currently, the hepatitis D research is financed by FCT. However, the project ends by august 2008. We also have some funding available from bench fees of PhD and masters students, as well as those who attend the post-graduate courses we organize. Nevertheless, we urgently need to apply for funding. The last FCT call for projects opened in the beginning of 2007.

The HIV related activities are financed by the EU, National government and private foundations, and the pharmaceutical industry. We will continue to search for new funding for the planned activities preparing applications for the forthcoming competitive calls.

Concerning the rotavirus research, we intend to apply as soon as new FCT calls open. The EuroRotaNet we recently joined will finance 50% of the budget for the research.

Previous publications in the area (5 in the last 5 years. If available you must indicate at the end of the citation, impact factor of the journal (IF=) and number of citations (n° C=). Give title and full citation in original language)

Alves, C., Freitas, N., Cunha, C.. Characterization of the nuclear localization signal of the hepatitis delta virus antigen. Virology 370 (1): 12-21.

Mota, S., Mendes, M., Penque, D., Coelho, A. V., Cunha, C. Changes in the proteome of Huh7 cells induced by transient expression of hepatitis D virus RNA and antigens. Journal of Proteomics 71; 71-79.

Claudia Istrate, Iyadh Douagi, Annie Charpillienne, Åsa Hidmark, Kari Johansen, Marie Larsson, Karl-Eric Magnusson, Didier Poncet, Lennart Svensson and Jorma Hinkula. Bone marrow dendritic cells internalize live RF-81 bovine rotavirus and rotavirus-like particles (RF 2/6-GFP-VLPs and RF 8*2/6/7-VLPs) but are only activated by live bovine rotavirus. Journal of Scandinavian Immunology, 2007, Jun; 65(6), 494-502

Claudia Istrate, Jorma Hinkula, Lennart Hammarström and Lennart Svensson. Individuals with selective IgA deficiency resolve rotavirus disease and develop higher antibody titers (IgG, IgG1) than IgA competent individuals. Journal of Medical Virology 80:531–535 (2008)

Elin Johansson, Claudia Istrate, Annie Charpillienne, Jean Cohen, Jorma Hinkula, Didier Poncet, Lennart Svensson and Kari Johansen. Amount of maternal rotavirus-specific antibodies influence the outcome of rotavirus vaccination of newborn mice with virus-like particles. Vaccine (2008) 26, 778—785

Abecasis A, Paraskevis D, Epalanga M, Fonseca M, Burity F, Bartolomeu J, Carvalho AP, Gomes P, Vandamme AM, Camacho RJ. HIV-1 genetic variants circulation in the North of Angola. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 5 (3), 231–237, 2005

Special Requirements (equipment, facilities, staff or other special needs essential to carry out the future research program)

Equipment: In the last FCT call for new equipment the CMDT-LA proposal was not granted. A large number of equipment in our laboratory is more then 20 years old. No new heavy equipment was acquired in the last 10 years. We need new laminar air flows, a CO2 incubator, a thermocycler, and electrophoresis tanks, to substitute the old items. Additionally, new microscopes are needed: an inverted light microscope, a fluorescence microscope and a confocal.

Human resources: Hiring a post-doc and a database manager to work on HIV research. Hiring a post-doc to work on HDV research.