VIASEF is the new infrastructure of the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Last June, the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHMT-NOVA) inaugurated the “VIASEF-In Vivo Arthropod Security Facility,” a new scientific infrastructure funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the National Roadmap for Research Infrastructure. The inauguration was attended by the Vice-President of the FCT Board of Directors, José Paulo Esperança.

VIASEF, located at IHMT-NOVA, is a high-security facility (ACL3) that offers the academic, scientific, and business communities the opportunity to conduct in vivo studies with native, invasive, exotic, or transgenic arthropods that are vectors of pathogens causing human diseases.

This infrastructure also provides safe laboratory conditions for developing projects involving human pathogens (vector-borne or otherwise), including those classified as biosafety level 3 (e.g., chikungunya virus, coronavirus, or multidrug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis).

More information on the IHMT-NOVA website