Between October 14 and 16, 2024, the scientific program of the NOVA Medical School Doctoral Student Retreat took place, a meeting focused on discussing the latest scientific advances at NOVA Medical School, and aimed at strengthening the relationship between the medical and biomedical community.
With 100 registrants and an average of 30 to 40 participants per day, this initiative included students from NOVA Medical School, the IPO, and doctors doing their doctorates in hospitals, predominantly in the Lisbon area.
The scientific program featured six guest speakers, doctoral students from various research institutes, who shared their innovative work:
- Merit Kruse - Neural Circuits and Behaviour Lab at Champalimaud Research.
- Catarina da Silva Barros - Central Nervous System, Blood and Peripheral Inflammaton lab at iMED.Lisboa
- Carolina Jardim - Ribot & Silva Santos Lab at GiMM
- Rita Cardoso Figueiredo - Behaviour and Metabolism Lab at Champalimaud Research
- Miguel Gomes - Neuromuscular Research Lab at Faculdade de Motricidade Humana (ULisboa)
- Catarina Sequeira - Edgar Gomes Lab at GiMM
In addition to the presentations, the retreat also recognized scientific excellence through prizes awarded to the best posters and oral presentations of each day. The winners were:
October 14th
- Poster - Luís Sousa, PhD Student Hugo Miranda's lab, with the work "Exploring the Impact of Insulin Degrading Enzyme Dysfunction and High-Fat Diet on Parkinson’s Disease pathogenesis"
- Presentation - Ana Caulino, PhD Student Claudia Almeida's lab, with the work "Synaptic Specificity and Functional Interplay of BAR Domain Proteins Endophilin-A and Bin1 in Neurodegeneration and Aging"
October 15th
- Poster - Rute Salvador, PhD Student at Guadalupe Cabral's lab with the work "Enhancing HLA-DR-Expressing Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes for the success of T Cell-Based Therapies in Breast Cancer"
- Presentation - Ana Tomás, PhD Student at Marta Pojo's lab at IPO, with the work "Identifying potential predictive and prognostic immune biomarkers in cutaneous melanoma"
October 16th
- Poster - Catarina Simões, Ph Student at Otília Vieira's lab with the work "Unraveling the Connection Between Lysosomal Dysfunction and Senescence in Atherogenesis"
- Presentation - Miguel Marques Antunes, MD PhD student with the work "Machine-learning based radiomics model to predict ventricular arrythmias in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy"
The opening ceremony was also attended by Professor Paula Macedo, coordinator of the PhD in Biomedicine, Professor Miguel Seabra, coordinator of the PhD in Health Sciences, Professor João Conde, Deputy Director for Research, and Professor Elvira Fortunato, former Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education of Portugal.
This retreat has established itself as an essential meeting point for young researchers, offering an environment for sharing and debate on the future of clinical and biomedical research in Portugal.