Pulido Valente Prize 2017 honors iMM doctoral student

The article "Atomic force microscopy as a tool to evaluate the risk of cardiovascular diseases in patients", written by researcher Ana Filipa Guedes and published in Nature Nanotechnology in 2016, is the winner of the Pulido Valente Prize 2017, which this year was focused on the field of cardiology. The award ceremony will be presided over by the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Manuel Heitor, and will take place on March 1, at 3pm, in the Salão Nobre of the Palácio das Laranjeiras, in Lisbon.

The PhD student at the Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM) analyzed the interaction between fibrinogen (a blood plasma protein that is decisive in the coagulation process and has been identified as a potential risk factor in cardiovascular diseases) and the red blood cells of patients with chronic heart failure, in order to understand how fibrinogen influences the aggregation of these cells.

In this analysis, carried out using a technique from the field of nanotechnology - atomic force microscopy (AFM) - it was found that the force needed to break the bond between fibrinogen and the red blood cell in patients with chronic heart failure is higher than in healthy people. In the one-year follow-up, it was observed that those with higher fibrinogen-red blood cell binding forces, measured by AFM at the beginning of the study, were more likely to be hospitalized for cardiovascular complications during the following 12 months.

The study demonstrates the relevant contribution of the application of Nanomedicine in the field of Cardiology, enhancing the identification of new biomarkers for assessing cardiovascular risk and thereby improving clinical prognosis.

In 2017, Ana Filipa Guedes was also awarded the SPBf Young Biophysicist Prize by the Portuguese Biophysics Society; in 2016 she was awarded the Best Poster Award by the Portuguese Biophysics Society and in 2014, the Best Communication Award by the International Fibrinogen Research Society-France.

The Pulido Valente Science Prize annually honors the best article published in an area of Biomedical Sciences that describes the results of research carried out by a researcher under the age of 35 on the date of submission of the application, at a national R&D institution. The amount of this prize is 10,000 euros, co-financed by the Professor Francisco Pulido Valente Foundation and the Foundation for Science and Technology, in accordance with the Protocol established between the two institutions.