Bruna Ferreira-Lomba

  • Protein Aggregation
  • C. elegans
  • M. musculus
  • Folding Sensors
  • Machado-Joseph Disease
  • Neurodegenerative Diseases
  • Pharmacological Therapies
  • Proteostasis
  • Serotonergic Drugs
  • Serotonergic Signaling

Bruna Ferreira-Lomba holds a B.Sc. in Applied Biology (2017) and a M.Sc. in Health Sciences (2020) from the University of Minho. Her motivation is to contribute to decipher Machado-Joseph Disease (MJD) pathogenesis and to cooperate in the development of a disease-modifying treatment capable to stall or revert MJD progression, to ultimately provide a better quality of life to the patients and their caregivers. Based on this purpose, she is working in Neurosciences research at Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), since 2017. During her bachelor’s degree project, she studied the pharmacological modulation of serotonergic signaling in the motor behavior of the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) model of MJD. In her master’s degree dissertation, she focused on the analysis of the therapeutic modulation of serotonergic signaling in C. elegans models of proteotoxicity, expressing neuronal proteostasis sensor proteins. She worked as research technician in the project entitled “Determining the Efficacy of NLX-112 in a Mouse Experimental Model of Cerebellar Ataxia”, financed by the USA Department of Defense. She possesses experience in biochemical techniques and behavior analysis using C. elegans and Mus musculus models. Bruna published 2 peer-reviewed articles, contributed to 4 selected oral presentations and 46 conference posters and received 2 best poster awards. She is interested in scientific communication, being actively involved in the organization of scientific workshops/events, such as the coordination of the annual event of the Rare Disease Day celebration at ICVS since 2021, and she is a member of the Activities and Outreach Team of ICVS.

Bruna Ferreira-Lomba

  • Protein Aggregation
  • C. elegans
  • M. musculus
  • Folding Sensors
  • Machado-Joseph Disease
  • Neurodegenerative Diseases
  • Pharmacological Therapies
  • Proteostasis
  • Serotonergic Drugs
  • Serotonergic Signaling

Bruna Ferreira-Lomba holds a B.Sc. in Applied Biology (2017) and a M.Sc. in Health Sciences (2020) from the University of Minho. Her motivation is to contribute to decipher Machado-Joseph Disease (MJD) pathogenesis and to cooperate in the development of a disease-modifying treatment capable to stall or revert MJD progression, to ultimately provide a better quality of life to the patients and their caregivers. Based on this purpose, she is working in Neurosciences research at Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), since 2017. During her bachelor’s degree project, she studied the pharmacological modulation of serotonergic signaling in the motor behavior of the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) model of MJD. In her master’s degree dissertation, she focused on the analysis of the therapeutic modulation of serotonergic signaling in C. elegans models of proteotoxicity, expressing neuronal proteostasis sensor proteins. She worked as research technician in the project entitled “Determining the Efficacy of NLX-112 in a Mouse Experimental Model of Cerebellar Ataxia”, financed by the USA Department of Defense. She possesses experience in biochemical techniques and behavior analysis using C. elegans and Mus musculus models. Bruna published 2 peer-reviewed articles, contributed to 4 selected oral presentations and 46 conference posters and received 2 best poster awards. She is interested in scientific communication, being actively involved in the organization of scientific workshops/events, such as the coordination of the annual event of the Rare Disease Day celebration at ICVS since 2021, and she is a member of the Activities and Outreach Team of ICVS.

Scientific Highlights

Articles
Jalles, A.*, Vieira, C.*, Pereira-Sousa, J., Vilasboas-Campos, D., Mota, A. F., Vasconcelos, S., Ferreira-Lomba, B., Costa, M. D., Da Silva, J. D., Maciel, P., & Teixeira-Castro, A. (2022). Aripiprazole Offsets Mutant ATXN3-Induced Motor Dysfunction by Targeting Dopamine D2 and Serotonin 1A and 2A Receptors in C. elegans. Biomedicines, 10(2), 370. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10020370

Pereira-Sousa, J., Ferreira-Lomba, B., Bellver-Sanchis, A., Vilasboas-Campos, D., Fernandes, J. H., Costa, M. D., Varney, M. A., Newman-Tancredi, A., Maciel, P., & Teixeira-Castro, A. (2021). Identification of the 5-HT1A serotonin receptor as a novel therapeutic target in a C. elegans model of Machado-Joseph disease. Neurobiology of disease, 152, 105278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbd.2021.105278

Add Your Heading Text Here

Projects

As Leader

Projects

As Member

Serotonin signaling and proteostasis

This project addresses an unmet medical need- the lack of effective treatment for any of the aging-associated neurodegenerative diseases. Due to the worldwide aging of the population, by 2050 it is expected that over 135 million people…

Read More