ICVS

ICVS Student Seminar “The rostral ventromedial medulla as a key target of the maladaptive response to chronic inflammatory pain”
2025-05-19 13:00 - 14:00 UTC
May 19th at 1 pm, don’t miss Diana Rodrigues “The rostral ventromedial medulla as a key target of the maladaptive response to chronic inflammatory pain” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminars "Decoding the host-environment crosstalk in pulmonary fibrosis: advancing precision medicine"
2025-05-22 12:00 - 13:00
Hélder Novais-Bastos, Pulmonologist, Physician-scientist in interstitial lung diseases, and head of Interventional Pulmonology Unit of Hospital de São João
“Decoding the host-environment crosstalk in pulmonary fibrosis: advancing precision medicine”
Hélder obtained a degree in Medicine in 2008 by Nova Medical School, and in 2009, he joined ICVS to study the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in host-pathogen interaction during different stages of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, having concluded his PhD in 2017. Presently, Helder is a Pulmonologist at Hospital São João, where he coordinates the interventional pulmonology and endoscopy unit, and leads a research project with biobank (FIBRALUNG) at the major Interstitial Lung Diseases unit of the country. He is now mainly focused on studying the underlying molecular pathways of sarcoidosis and pulmonary fibrosis. He also divides his time as Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto (FMUP), and physician-scientist at the Immune Regulation research group at i3S.

ICVS Student Seminar “RKIP in Lung Adenocarcinoma: Insights into tumor biology, prognostic significance, and resistance to EGFR targeted therapies”
2025-05-26 13:00 - 14:00
May 26 at 1 pm, don’t miss Ana Raquel Cunha “RKIP in Lung Adenocarcinoma: Insights into tumor biology, prognostic significance, and resistance to EGFR targeted therapies” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminars “From Nutrition to Clinical Research: A Journey of Growth, Innovation and Knowledge Integration”
2025-05-29 12:00 - 13:00
Natália Cruz-Martins, Assistant Researcher at ICVS
“From Nutrition to Clinical Research: A Journey of Growth, Innovation and Knowledge Integration”
Natália Cruz-Martins, PhD, is an Associate Researcher at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS). She has an academic and research background in nutrition, natural medicine, phytochemistry, phytopharmacology, functional foods and nutraceuticals. She has increasingly focused on the use of naturally occurring bioactives for human health, not only from a health promotion and disease prevention perspective, but also for treatment. She has been working as an university professor since 2017, has been advisor of several theses, reviewer and member of the editorial board of several indexed journals, and is a member of the evaluation committee of the College of Nutritionists. She has participated in several research projects, received several grants and awards, published more than 300 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, 2 edited books and several book chapters. She is a member of the Council for Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (CONEM, Norway) and the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) Network.

Sulci, Gyri, Ventricles, Dissecting Fibers
2025-06-01 08:00 - 2025-06-05 12:00
Theoretical and practical course on neurosurgery with hands-on training in cadaver model, in a fully equipped surgical lab, reviewing the Anatomy, Pathology, and Operative approaches to vascular and neoplastic intracranial lesions.
https://b-acis.pt/workshops/course-neurosurgery/

ICVS Advanced Seminar "Epidemiology of asthma in Portuguese adults – the EPI-ASTHMA study, a nationwide population-based survey”
2025-06-05 12:00 - 13:00
Join Us for the ICVS Advanced Seminar Series
ICVS Advanced Seminars, a weekly series aimed at fostering discussion on cutting-edge research, take place every Thursday at EM.
“Epidemiology of asthma in Portuguese adults – the EPI-ASTHMA study, a nationwide population-based survey”
Jaime Correia de Sousa, ICVS/EM, University of Minho
Jaime Correia de Sousa is Honorary Professor (Professor Afiliado) in the School of Medicine of the University of Minho. He is a family physician with a special interest in Respiratory Medicine. He has a PhD in Medicine (Univ. of Minho) and MSc in Public Health (Univ. of Porto). Published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Principal investigator of the Epi-Asthma Project (an epidemiological national survey of asthma in Portugal) and EPISODE (Exploring clinical predictors of COPD exacerbation in a community cohort). Past President of the International Primary Care Respiratory Group 2016-2018. Member of the Board 2012-19. Chair of the Asthma Right Care Strategy Team (IPCRG). Member of the IPCRG Education Sub-Committee. Former Member of the Planning Committee of the Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases (GARD – WHO) 2015- 2019. Former member of the Ethics Committee for Health of the North Regional Health Administration.

ICVS Student Seminar "Unveiling the contribution of itaconate to pulmonary granulomatous inflammation in sarcoidosis"
2025-06-09 13:00 - 14:00
June 9th at 1 pm, don’t miss Cátia Rodrigues “Unveiling the contribution of itaconate to pulmonary granulomatous inflammation in sarcoidosis” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminar “From neuronal polarization to function: unveiling the transport and function of neuronal surface receptors”
2025-06-12 12:00 - 14:00
Join Us for the ICVS Advanced Seminar Series
ICVS Advanced Seminars, a weekly series aimed at fostering discussion on cutting-edge research, take place every Thursday at EM.
“From neuronal polarization to function: unveiling the transport and function of neuronal surface receptors”
Luís Ribeiro, MIA, University of Coimbra
Luís’s research is focused on uncovering the molecular and cellular mechanisms regulating the distribution and function of neuronal surface receptors in health, ageing, and disease. His PhD at the University of Coimbra explored ghrelin receptor function in the hippocampus, with findings published in PNAS and Science Signaling. During his postdoc at VIB-KU Leuven, he used advanced imaging, biochemical, and proteomic methods to study synaptic protein regulation, with work published in Neuron and PLOS Biology. In 2021, he became an independent investigator at CNC-UC, supported by FCT and MSCA fellowships. He now leads a lab at MIA-Portugal, recently funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, expanding research into brain disorders and ageing.

ICVS Student Seminar "Astrocytic Foxo1 regulates hippocampal spinogenesis, synaptic plasticity and enhances fear memory"
2025-06-16 13:00 - 14:00
June 16th at 1 pm, don’t miss Daniela Abreu “Astrocytic Foxo1 regulates hippocampal spinogenesis, synaptic plasticity and enhances fear memory” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar "Involvement of skeletal muscle in Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3: contribution to disease, potential for biomarker development and therapeutic targeting"
2025-06-23 13:00 - 14:00
June 23rd at 1 pm, don’t miss Daniela Garcia “Involvement of skeletal muscle in Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3: contribution to disease, potential for biomarker development and therapeutic targeting” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar "SPINT2 Expression in Cancer: Focus on Its Role and Therapeutic Impact in BRAF-Mutated Melanoma"
2025-06-30 13:00 - 14:00
June 30th at 1 pm, don’t miss Sónia Celeiro “SPINT2 Expression in Cancer: Focus on Its Role and Therapeutic Impact in BRAF-Mutated Melanoma” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar “Lipid Metabolism-Mediated Mechanisms of Antifungal Immunity”
2025-07-07 13:00 - 14:00
July 7th at 1 pm, don’t miss Adriana Teixeira-Costa “Lipid Metabolism-Mediated Mechanisms of Antifungal Immunity” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminars “Ironing out the role of iron in hematopoiesis and leukemia”
2025-07-10 12:00 - 13:00
Delfim Duarte is a physician-scientist and leader of the Hematopoiesis and Microenvironments group. His teams’ goals are to study the cell extrinsic regulation of leukemia and hematopoiesis at the local and systemic levels and to unravel new biological mechanisms in leukemia through in vivo studies. He is also a clinician at the Dept of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation in IPO-Porto and an Invited Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto (FMUP).

ICVS Student Seminar "Novel therapeutic approaches for bladder cancer"
2025-07-14 13:00 - 14:00
July 14th at 1 pm, don’t miss Ana Isabel Silva “Novel therapeutic approaches for bladder cancer” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminars “DataRepositóriUM: partilhar, publicar e gerir dados de investigação”
2025-07-17 12:00 - 13:00
DataRepositóriUM: partilhar, publicar e gerir dados de investigação
Your research data is valuable to the University of Minho, so organizing and sharing it securely increases its impact, promotes good Open Science practices and enhances reuse by other researchers.
DataRepositóriUM – UFMG Data Repository will help you preserve and document your data, comply with good scientific practices, obtain DOI (Persistent Identifier) ​​and visibility for your results, facilitate citation and recognition of your work.

ICVS Advanced Seminars “Automating analysis and training in focused cardiac ultrasound”
2025-07-24 12:00 - 13:00
Sandro Queirós (SQ) graduated in Biomedical Engineering in 2013 by the University of Minho (Portugal). In 2018, he completed a joint Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering by the University of Minho (Portugal) and in Biomedical Sciences by KU Leuven (Belgium). Since 2018, SQ is a full-time researcher at ICVS, having been granted an FCT-funded junior research position in 2020.
Throughout his research career, Sandro has been mainly interested in the development of novel medical imaging processing solutions to help clinicians in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Specifically, his work has been focused primarily on cardiovascular diseases – the leading cause of death in the world. He has been the leading developer of novel image processing methodologies for cardiac function quantification, as well as novel technological solutions for preoperative planning, intraoperative guidance, and postoperative evaluation of transcatheter heart interventions. More recently, his work aims at developing novel artificial intelligent solutions for automatic medical training and diagnosis in echocardiography.
Overall, SQ (co-)authored 40 peer-reviewed articles, 39 full proceedings, and 29 conference abstracts, totaling an accumulated IF of 184, >1300 citations and an h-index of 21. His research outputs have also led to 2 international and 1 Portuguese invention patents, 2 provisional patents and the commercial licensing of an image tracking software. SQ has also (co-)supervised the thesis of 4 Ph.D. (ongoing), 10 M.Sc. (3 ongoing) and 6 B.Sc. students.

ICVS Student Seminar “Assessing astrocytic modulation of neuronal activity in cortico-limbic circuits”
2025-07-28 13:00 - 14:00
July 28th at 1 pm, don’t miss João Machado “Assessing astrocytic modulation of neuronal activity in cortico-limbic circuits” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar “When the Brain Sleeps, Microglia Listen: Responses to MCH Neuron Activity”
2025-09-01 13:00 - 14:00
September 1st at 1 pm, don’t miss João Frei “When the Brain Sleeps, Microglia Listen: Responses to MCH Neuron Activity” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar “Elucidation of the Functional Roles of Lipid Metabolism During Leishmaniasis”
2025-09-08 13:00 - 14:00
September 8th at 1 pm, don’t miss Marta Araújo “Elucidation of the Functional Roles of Lipid Metabolism During Leishmaniasis” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar “Unravelling the role of itaconate in the immunometabolic regulation of antifungal immunity”
2025-09-15 13:00 - 14:00
September 15th at 1 pm, don’t miss Tatiana Fernandes “Unravelling the role of itaconate in the immunometabolic regulation of antifungal immunity” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar "Cholinergic dynamics of projections from Laterodorsal Tegmentum to the Nucleus Accumbens in associative learning"
2025-09-22 13:00 - 14:00
September 22nd at 1 pm, don’t miss Ana Clara Faria “Cholinergic dynamics of projections from Laterodorsal Tegmentum to the Nucleus Accumbens in associative learning” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Student Seminar “Sleep and MCH-neuron impact on microglia-Aβ plaque dynamics”
2025-09-29 13:00 - 14:00
September 29th at 1 pm, don’t miss Mariana Ferreira “Sleep and MCH-neuron impact on microglia-Aβ plaque dynamics” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminar "IPLEXMED: Driving the Next Generation of Diagnostics from Lab to Life"
2025-10-02 13:00 - 14:00
October 2nd at 1 pm, don’t miss Bruno Almeida’s “IPLEXMED: Driving the Next Generation of Diagnostics from Lab to Life” at the A0.03 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.
IPLEXMED, a spin-off from the University of Minho and INL, is developing NEXAGUARD®—a portable, graphene-based diagnostic platform delivering lab-quality results in 20 minutes at the point of care or at home. Validated at TRL 6 with multiple patents filed, it targets bacterial respiratory infections and AMR, with plans to expand to STDs, sepsis, and hospital-acquired infections. Market launch is set for 2027 with a scalable “razor-and-blade” model, driving faster diagnostics, improved treatments, and lower healthcare costs worldwide.

ICVS Student Seminar "Layer-specific imbalances in cortical interneurons in the Dp(16)1Yey mouse model of Down Syndrome"
2025-10-06 13:00 - 14:00
October 6th at 1 pm, don’t miss Sara Guerreiro’s “Layer-specific imbalances in cortical interneurons in the Dp(16)1Yey mouse model of Down Syndrome” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminar “Exploring the Microbiome in Colorectal Cancer: Implications for Prevention, Diagnosis, and Therapy Response”
2025-10-09 13:00 - 14:00
October 9th at 1 pm, don’t miss Rui M. Reis’s “Exploring the Microbiome in Colorectal Cancer: Implications for Prevention, Diagnosis, and Therapy Response” at the A0.01 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.
Rui Manuel Reis, PhD, has dedicated nearly three decades to cancer research, primarily focusing on molecular pathology to discover and validate biomarkers. He is an Invited Associate Professor at the School of Medicine, University of Minho, Portugal, and serves as Scientific Director of the Barretos Cancer Hospital, Brazil. In this seminar, he will share his recent research on the interaction between the microbiome and colorectal cancer.

ICVS Student Seminar “Neuroprotective and pro-dopaminergic effects of the secretome from hypoxic and normoxic iMSCs cultured under dynamic conditions in Parkinson’s Disease in vitro models"”
2025-10-13 08:00 - 17:00
October 13th at 1 pm, don’t miss Alessander Leyendecker Junior‘s “Neuroprotective and pro-dopaminergic effects of the secretome from hypoxic and normoxic iMSCs cultured under dynamic conditions in Parkinson’s Disease in vitro models” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminar “The interplay between Tau and RNA granules in Stress-induced neuronal dysfunction”
2025-10-16 13:00 - 14:00
October 16th at 1 pm, don’t miss Joana Silva’s “The interplay between Tau and RNA granules in Stress-induced neuronal dysfunction” at the A0.03 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.
Joana Margarida Silva graduated in Applied Biology and completed an MSc in Molecular Genetics in 2012. She obtained her PhD in Health Sciences from the School of Medicine, University of Minho, in 2017. In 2018, she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Canon Foundation and later received an FCT Individual Contract to investigate the role of Tau in nuclear processes, particularly its interplay with RNA-binding proteins. Since 2021, Joana has been a Junior Researcher at ICVS, in C2B, where she explores how chronic stress contributes to processes of neurodegeneration.

ICVS Student Seminar “Alveolar macrophage response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection”
2025-10-20 13:00 - 14:00
October 20th at 1 pm, don’t miss Ana Rita Oliveira‘s “Alveolar macrophage response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.

ICVS Advanced Seminar “The neuromuscular junction as a therapeutic target and source of biomarkers in ALS”
2025-10-21 11:00 - 12:00
October 21st at 11 am, don’t miss Richard Robitaille‘s “The neuromuscular junction as a therapeutic target and source of biomarkers in ALS” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.
Richard Robitaille’s research interests include the study of the role of glial modulation in synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus, interactions of glial cells during the synapse during the formation and the aging of synapse, the role of those interactions during aging of the synapse and contribution of glial cells in the malfunctioning of neuromuscular junctions in Amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

ICVS Student Seminar “Endogenous opioid signaling in the nucleus accumbens in motivated behaviors”
2025-10-27 13:00 - 14:00
October 27th at 1 pm, don’t miss Margarida Macedo‘s “Endogenous opioid signaling in the nucleus accumbens in motivated behaviors” at the A0.02 auditorium in UMinho’s School of Medicine.
