Research Day in online format had more than a hundred participants, demonstrating that at FMUL, Science is always ON.
The event, organized by the Office for Support to Scientific and Technological Research and Innovation (GAPIC), in partnership with the Students Association of the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon (AEFML), took place on 9 December, for the first time online in view of the pandemic situation caused by COVID-19.
In this online edition, the programme was reduced to half a day. It started with the Opening Session, in which representatives of the three institutions that make up the CAML participated: Professor Fausto Pinto, Director of FMUL, and Professor José Melo Cristino, President of the Scientific Council, represented the Faculty of Medicine; Professor Carmo Fonseca represented the Institute of Molecular Medicine-João Lobo Antunes (iMM-JLB), of which she is President; and, on behalf of Santa Maria Hospital/ Northern Lisbon University Hospital Centre (HSM/CHULN), Dr Daniel Ferro, Chairman of the Board of Directors and D. Luís Pinheiro, Clinical Director. The Opening Session was also attended by the president of the AEFML, student António Velha, and by the coordinator of the GAPIC, Professor Ana Espada de Sousa.
All speakers underlined the importance of the “Education through Science” Programme for the training of future health professionals, by providing conditions for them to have contact with research activity at an early stage of their academic path. The fact that this programme creates a true network within the CAML community was also stressed, as it makes it stronger and more cohesive through the links it establishes through training, research and medical assistance. In the opinion of Professor Maria do Carmo Fonseca, investing in research is a distinctive factor of FMUL as a training institution and, therefore, the first choice for many of the students entering year 1, considering that “this must be a purpose of our Faculty, work towards teaching medicine based on science (…) ”.
At the end of the Opening Session, Professor João Ferreira disclosed the Final Works/ IMDM Theses awarded the GAPIC David-Ferreira 2019/2020 Prize and honourable mentions, which were presented by the respective students:
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Prize
- Nuno Vouga Ribeiro,”Fluoroquinolones are associated with increased risk of aortic aneurysm or dissection: systematic review and metaanalysis";
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1st Honourable Mention (ex aequo)
- David Gonçalves Paixão, “Metabolic resuscitation in septic shock”;
- Vitória Rita Ramilo Gomes Pereira Cadete, “Physiological dynamics of patients followed by a medicalized pre-hospital team at São José Hospital”;
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2nd Honourable Mention
- António Henrique Cunha-Vaz Martinho, “Ocular and systemic risk markers for development of Macular Edema and Proliferative Retinopathy in Type 2 Diabetes. A five-year longitudinal study”.
In the Poster Session, divided into 4 sessions that took place simultaneously, the results of the 30 works conducted in 2020 were presented and discussed by the 39 students involved in the 23rd edition of the “Education through Science” Programme | CHULN/ FMUL scholarships. The moderators of the 4 sessions, professors and researchers from FMUL and the iMM selected the 3 best presentations, which received the AEFML Research Day Awards:
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1st place
- Laura Teixeira Castro, “Effect of RANK+ breast cancer cells’ secretome in monocytic differentiation”, Luís Costa Lab;
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2nd place
- Rúben Filipe Alves Simões, “Deciphering the protein fingerprint of synaptic mitochondria”, Vanessa Morais Lab;
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3rd place
- Beatriz Anjo Santos Lima, “Splicing modulation in patients carrying a mutation in the BRCA2 gene: therapeutic potential”, Maria Carmo-Fonseca Lab.
This year, the session Research paths invited Professor Tiago Gil de Oliveira, Director of the innovative Doctoral Programme in Medicine at the University of Minho, which allows medical students to complete their Ph.D. before completing the medical degree; and Professor Ricardo Fernandes, member of the GAPIC team and coordinator of the PREPIT project, which seeks to assess the impact of GAPIC Programmes in terms of gains in knowledge, skills and attitudes; barriers and opportunities; scientific output and personal paths of undergraduate students who participated in GAPIC's research programmes, with two main objectives: i) To evaluate the scientific output indicators of the participants of the GAPIC degree programmes, in the short and long term; ii) To characterize the perspectives of the participants of the GAPIC degree programmes on their importance and impact. The interesting presentations were followed by an intense, participatory and enthusiastic debate, moderated by Professors Cláudia Faria and Susana Fernandes, from the GAPIC coordinating team, and student João Martins, from the AEFML.
Research Day ended with a session organized by the AEFML, which included the students who organized the AIMS Meeting to present the Research Competition to which FMUL students were invited to participate. Finally, the AEFML Research Day Awards were presented.
Once again, the a evaluation of Research Day was quite positive. Despite the success of this event in the online format, we hope that this year, 2021, we will be able to meet again physically in December!
Office for the Support to Scientific and Technological Research and Innovation
