Inflammation Cell Signaling and Therapeutics

Inflammation is a response of the host to infection or tissue damage and has the physiological purpose of restoring tissue homeostasis. However, uncontrolled or unresolved inflammation can lead to excessive and continuous tissue damage, giving rise to a plethora of chronic inflammatory disorders, including chronic skin wounds, premature aging, cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmunity and neurodegenerative disorders, that collectively represent the leading causes of disability and mortality worldwide. The aims of the InflammaSignal team are focused on better understanding the coordinated activation of different signaling pathways that regulate the host inflammatory response and on developing innovative therapeutic/diagnostic strategies for the underlying mechanisms of inflammatory chronic diseases. The activity of the InflammaSignal team is translation-oriented with interdisciplinary and complementary expertise dedicated to both biomedical and clinical research, which promotes a creative environment spanning from bench to bedside.

Through effective research actions and key well-established collaborations with academy and pharma/biotech partners, the InflammaSignal team gathers critical mass in different fields of expertise to achieve integration of fundamental (through ICVS) and clinical (through 2CA) sciences and enabling state-of-the-art technologies, with the aims of expediting the discovery and validation of high value products and processes (through B.ACIS) that inroads into reducing the burden of chronic inflammatory disease.

RESEARCH TOPICS

The most relevant areas of action in the research of our team are:

Chronic inflammatory infectious diseases;
Chronic inflammation in non-infectious diseases.

Team Members

Projects

Carlos Capela

Buruli ulcer: immunogenetic determinants of susceptibility/resistance to chronic skin infection

Buruli Ulcer (BU) is a neglected infectious disease responsible for massive necrotic skin lesions. BU is the third most common mycobacteriosis worldwide,..

Alexandra Fraga

Buruli ulcer: immunometabolic requirements for host-mycobacteria interaction

Mycobacterium ulcerans is the causative agent of Buruli Ulcer (BU), a neglected tropical disease characterized by extensive necrotic skin lesions. M. ulcerans,…

Paula Ludovico

Extracellular vesicles with biomarkers for metabolic diseases and chronic inflammation associated diseases

Many metabolic disorders are chronic diseases that require continuous biomarker monitoring to ensure the patient is stable and responding to treatment…

Paula Ludovico

Molecular pathogenesis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous group of hematologic malignancies characterized by differentiation arrest and uncontrolled proliferation of myeloid precursor cells (blasts)…

Jorge Pedrosa

Treatment of chronic bacterial infections: Bacteriophages as a potential treatment option

Life-threatening human infectious diseases caused by bacterial pathogens are now re-emerging, in part due to increased resistance to antibiotics.