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Five new Starting Grants from the European Research Council for researchers in Portugal

Cell division, antibiotic resistant bacteria, the control of coordinated movements and the development of the thymus. These are the study themes of the five new winners, in Portugal, of the prestigious ERC Starting Grants - . European Research Council.

Nuno Alves and Ana Carvalho (both from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of the University of Porto), Ana Cecília Roque ( fromUCIBIO@REQUIMTE of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon), Raquel Oliveira (from the Gulbenkian Science Institute), and Megan Carey (from theChampalimaud Foundation) will receive an average of 1.5 million euros each, to develop over five years the projects that have been approved by the highly competitive panels to which they were submitted.

These five scientists are looking for answers to some of the biggest challenges in their respective scientific fields. Their results could lead to major advances in better understanding health and some pathologies, such as infectious diseases, cancer, autoimmunity, and neurological motor diseases.

Ana Carvalho and Raquel Oliveira are both interested in the complex and finely regulated processes that occur during cell division, in the process of mitosis. Raquel will investigate recent results that suggest that, contrary to what was thought, chromosomes are not passive observers during mitosis, but rather play a more active role in their separation, even influencing the supervisory mechanisms of the cell division process. She will investigate how structural abnormalities in chromosomes can lead to errors during mitosis and what impact they have on the development of an organism (in this case, the powerful vinegar fly, her study model). Ana Carvalho's work focuses on the final stages of mitosis, after the chromosomes have separated, on how the formation of a contractile ring that divides the cytoplasm of the mother cell is regulated to form two daughter cells, each with its own set of chromosomes.

Nuno Alves chose as his study organ the thymus, where T lymphocytes are generated and mature. These immune system cells recognize and attack pathogens, but are tolerant of the organism in which they are found. The T-lymphocytes mature (differentiate) in microenvironments of the thymus, lined by so-called thymic epithelial cells. In these environments those that recognize one's own organism are eliminated, leaving only those that might recognize pathogens. When these processes are disturbed, situations of immunodeficiency or autoimmunity arise. Nuno's goal is to study these microenvironments, in particular the molecular and cellular mechanisms controlling the renewal of thymic epithelial cell progenitor cells and their effect on the differentiation of different types of T lymphocytes. With this knowledge, it may be possible to modulate these processes, with impact for health sciences.

Ana Cecília Roque's challenge is to develop tools that allow the rapid identification of antibiotic resistant bacteria - a global threat that is spreading at an alarming rate. Her approach is in a new area of diagnostics, based on the detection of volatile microbial metabolites. His group has recently discovered a new class of stimuli-responsive materials that show great potential for advancing the field of odor detection. Their research could lead to the rapid identification of pathogenic bacteria, including those that have acquired extended resistance to antibiotics, with great impact on disease control.

Megan Carey is the only foreigner in the group, but she has been with the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program for a number of years. With her ERC funding she will continue to investigate the functioning of the cerebellum, specifically to try to identify which neuronal circuits in the cerebellum contribute to controlled locomotion. He hopes to be able to establish a causal relationship between the activities recorded in specific neuronal circuits and the control of coordinated movements. These correlations could pave the way to better control movements in disease situations.

These five new ERC winners join 36 others that, between 2006 and 2013, obtained funding Starting, Advanced e Consolidator to work in Portugal.