The BIOTECnico PhD program is committed to organize different activities for its PhD students.
News and events related with the BIOTECnico fellows are published and made available publicly in the IBB scoop.it page.
To scroll all the events associated with BIOTECnico, follow this link: http://www.scoop.it/t/ibb/?&tag=BIOTECnico
BIOTECnico Alumni Seminars
BIOTECnico is organizing a PhD Program seminar cycle, where alumni and last year students will be invited to share their PhD outcomes.
Spring 2021
• 19th of January, Tuesday, 4pm
Adaptation of Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria to the cystic fibrosis lung: focus on lipopolysaccharide O-antigen and cell wall physical properties
Amir Hassan :: Protein Research Unit, Laboratory of Microbiology, Gent University, Belgium
• 2nd of February, Tuesday, 4pm
Development of a novel purification platform for Fab antibody fragments based on affinity peptide and multimodal ligands
André Nascimento :: Hovione, Portugal
• 16th of February, Tuesday, 4pm
Unveiling the complex regulatory network governing antifungal drug resistance in candida glabrata: from new regulators to new effectors
Pedro Pais :: BSRG-iBB, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
• 2nd of March, , Tuesday, 4pm
Fluorescently-labeled DNA Probes Functionalized onto Gold Nanorods for Signal Enhancement in Nucleic Acids’ Detection
David Botequim :: BERG-iBB, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
• 16th of March, Tuesday, 4pm
Deciphering Mechanisms of Pathogenesis in Candida glabrata: in the Crossroad Between Drug Resistance and Virulence
Mafalda Cavalheiro :: BSRG-iBB, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
• 30th of March, Tuesday, 4pm
New insights into the interaction of Burkholderia cenocepacia with host cells: Trimeric autotransporter adhesins as pathogenicity factors
Andreia Pimenta :: BSRG-iBB, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
BIOTECnico Workshop
A joint workshop of the BIOTECnico and AEM (Applied and Environmental Microbiology) FCT PhD programs is held every year to foster the interaction of the PhD fellows and the scientific community.
Final Joint Workshop
The final joint workshop of the BIOTECnico and AEM FCT PhD programs was held on Feb 15-16 2023, via zoom. All sessions were open to the public. The full program and news related wit the event can be found in the links below.
Program: Final Workshop BIOTECnico AEM
• BIOTECnico PhD students
Ana Rita Santos, “Biomanufacturing of DNA-origami nanostructures for bio-imaging”
Diogo Faria, “Downstream Bioprocessing: traditional vs innovative”
Miguel Antunes, “Mechanisms of Yeast Adaptation and Tolerance to Acetic Acid Stress: physiological genomic approaches and genotype-phenotype associations”
• BIOTECnico alumni
André Nascimento, “And after the PhD, do you prefer academia or industry? I say both”, Hovione (June 2020 – April 2021) and iBET (since May 2021)
Mafalda Cavalheiro, “From BIOTECnico to BioSCALE”. A4F-Algafuel, S.A.
Andreia Pimenta, “Host-pathogen interaction from the lung to the gut: a post-doc experience”. Bacterial Energy Metabolism Lab – ITQB NOVA
3rd Joint Workshop
The 3rd joint workshop of the BIOTECnico and AEM FCT PhD programs was held on June 11-12 2018, in Lisbon at IST. All sessions were open to the public. The full program and news related wit the event can be found in the links below.
Program: 3rd Workshop Program
• The BIOTECnico students from class 2015 have presented their main results in a 15 min oral communication:
Amir Hassan: “Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria surface variation during long-term infection of the cystic fibrosis lung”
Pedro Pais: “Exploring the transcriptional landscape of antifungal resistance in Candida glabrata: from new regulators to new effectors”
André Nascimento: “Evolution of phage biopanning strategies to identify affinity peptides to purify Fab fragments.”
David Botequim: “Gold nano-beacons for nucleic acid detection: biosensing with plasmon-enhanced fluorescence”.
• The BIOTECnico students from class 2016 have presented their main results in a 10 min oral communication:
Mafalda Cavalheiro: “From susceptible to multiple azole resistant: the in vitro evolution of a Candida glabrata clinical isolate”
Cláudia Alves: “Escherichia coli genome engineering for improved minicircle production”
Andreia Pimenta: “Differential gene expression of Burkholderia cenocepacia trimeric autotransporter adhesin BCAM2418 in the early stages of bacteria-host-cell interactions”
Rui Silva: “Determination of proteolytic activity in real-time using plasmonic nanosensors”
• The BIOTECnico students from class 2017 also presented their main results in a 10 min oral communication:
Carlos Rodrigues: “Improving transaminase activity for industrial bioprocess applications”
Ana Rita Silva: “Biomanufacturing of DNA-origami nanostructures for bio-imaging”
Sara Salazar: “Mechanistic insights on the role of CgHaa1- and CgPdr1- pathways in stress residence and pathogenesis of Candida glabrata”
Tiago Pita: “Deciphering the Burkholderia cepacia complex virulome using the infection model Caenorhabditis elegans”
2nd Joint Workshop
The 2nd joint workshop of the BIOTECnico and AEM FCT PhD programs was held at IST (South Tower, Room QA02.1), on the 15th and 16th of February 2017. All sessions were open to the public. The full program and news related wit the event can be found in the links below.
Program: 2nd Workshop Program
2nd Joint Workshop Group Photo
• The BIOTECnico students from class 2015 have presented their main results to the advisory board.
Amir Hassan: “Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria variation during long-term infection of the cystic fibrosis lung: focus on the LPS O-antigen”
André Nascimento: “Evaluating conventional preparation methods of antibody fragments and rapid screening of alternative binding conditions using a microfluidic-based approach”
David Botequim: “Plasmonic biosensing using biotin functionalized gold nanorods”
Pedro Pais: “Transcription regulatory networks controlling antifungal drug resistance in Candida glabrata”
• Students from class 2016 also presented the main topic of their PhD program toghther with some preliminary results.
Andreia Pimenta: “Functional characterization of virulence-associated Trimeric Autotransporter Adhesins from the human pathogen Burkholderia cenocepacia” -
Cláudia Alves: “CRISPR/Cas9-based engineering of Escherichia coli for biobrick-based minicircles”
Rui Silva: “Biotechnological applications of carbon-dots: shine bright like a diamond”
Mafalda Cavalheiro: “In the crossroad between drug resistance and virulence in C. glabrata”
• Plenary Lectures: The students had the opportunity to attend to the following invited lectures.
“Creating new scale down routes to help speed translation of bioprocessing research to full scale application”, Michael Hoare, Biochemical Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
“The influence of interspecies interactions on antibiotic susceptibility of polymicrobial biofilms”, Tom Coenye, Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Microbiology, Ghent University, United Kingdom.
“Engineering of carbon and redox metabolism in yeast for bioethanol production”, Jack Pronk, TUDelft, The Netherlands.
“Lessons from Lactobacilli “, Willem M. De Vos, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and Helsinki University, Finland.
1st Joint Workshop
The 1st joint workshop of the BIOTECnico and AEM FCT PhD programs was held on January 21-22 2016, in Lisboa at IST (South Tower, Room Qa1.1). All sessions were open to the public. The full program can be found in the link below.
1st Joint Workshop Group Photo
• The BIOTECnico students from class 2015 presented the main topic of their PhD program toghther with some preliminary results.
Amir Hassan: “Bacterial adaptive evolution during chronic infection: the case study of the Burkholderia cepacia complex in the cystic fibrosis lung”
André Nascimento: “Development of a novel purification platform for Fab antibody fragments based on affinity peptide ligands”
David Botequim: “Nano-Beacons: Biosensors with Plasmonic Enhancement of Fluorescence Signalling for Nucleic Acid Detection”
Pedro Pais: “Antifungal drug resistance in Candida glabrata: the regulators and the effectors”.
PhD Open Days
The PhD Open Days is a major opportunity for more than one thousand PhD students enrolled in the different IST programs to socialize and share their research with the rest of the academic community, companies, and alumni.
These events start with the official Welcome Reception Ceremony for the new enrolled PhD students. There is a permanent poster exhibition with the most recent research developments made by PhD students, and the students have the opportunity to attend several plenary talks in cutting-edge research fields and meet successful alumni from IST PhD Programs. They also have the opportunity to learn from top researchers sharing their views and experience on how to manage competitive international projects; they are able to meet chief representatives from top ranking companies in STEM fields that hire PhDs. The traditional pitch competition and the “Out of the box” debate are sessions that are vey popular among the students.
The program of these annual events can be found in the following links:
DBE Seminars
The department of Bioengineering organizes periodically seminars focusing the recent advances in Biotechnology and Bioengineering. These seminars all open to all IST community and the BIOTECnico PhD students have the opportunity to attend to different invited talks on cutting edge science being carried out in Portugal and abraod. In each season one particular session is dedicated to the Phd students of he Department of Bioengineering. In these sessions selected PhD students are invited to present a pitch of their work.
Jun 14, 2021, 14h00 (on-line): PhD pitches by Selected PhD Students (DBE · IST)
Jun 13, 2020, 13h45 (Abreu Faro): PhD pitches by Selected PhD Students (DBE · IST)
Dec 16, 2019, 13h45 (Abreu Faro): PhD pitches by Selected PhD Students (DBE · IST)
17 Jun 2019, 13h00 (Abreu Faro): PhD pitch by Selected PhD Students (DBE · IST)
BIOTECnico students, André Nascimento and Pedro Pais, in the Q&A section.
Students at MicroBiotec 2015
From 10-12 December 2015, the University of Évora hosted the 6th joint congress of Microbiology and Biotechnology: Microbiotec15, organized by the Portuguese Society of Microbiology and the Portuguese Society of Biotechnology.
Find the Fellows!
Oral Communication
David Botequim: “Functionalized gold nanoparticles for plasmonic biosensing of nucleic acids” by D. Botequim, A. Jóskowiak, S.A.M. Martins, D.M.F. Prazeres, Costa, S.M.B., Paulo, P.M.R.,
Poster Communication
Amir Hassan: “Variation of O-antigen presence in Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria lipopolysaccharide (LPS) during chronic lung infection: a 20-year retrospective study at a national cystic fibrosis (CF) center” by A.A. Hassan, C.P. Coutinho, R.F. Maldonado and I. Sá-Correia.
André Nascimento: ” Polishing of Monoclonal Antibodies Streams through Convection Flow Devices” by A. Nascimento, S.A.S.L. Rosa, M. Mateus, A.M. Azevedo.
Pedro Pais: “New mechanisms of 5- flucytosine resistance in the human pathogen Candida glabrata: unveiled throught chemogenomics and proteomics approaches” by P. Pais, C. Costa, C. Pires, R. Santos, M. Cavalheiro, M.C. Teixeira.