The newsletter of FMUL interviewed the Director of the Institute of Biochemistry of the Faculty to know more about this unit and the projects it conducts.
Newsletter: what can you tell us about the origin of the Institute?
Professor Miguel Castanho: most people will not be aware of this, but Biochemistry in Portugal was born here. Historically, there are two major sources for Biochemistry in Portugal. One is Organic Chemistry. Germany was the birthplace of Organic Chemistry in Europe, and it entered Portugal thanks to a German researcher called Kurt Jacobson. The other is Physiological Chemistry, which is more associated with Medicine. This second branch was born at the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon. The Institute has this historical legacy: being one of the cradles of Biochemistry in Portugal. The reference person in this birth of Biochemistry was Mark Athias. He is best known for his histological studies, but he also attempted to do the reasoning of chemical reactions and chemical phenomena within cells. It was Mark Athias who did much of the seminal work in Biochemistry in Portugal and we are heirs of this legacy.
The Institute has gone through several phases. It started by being called Physiological Chemistry. Incidentally, the institute was simply called “chemistry” by many people, as a short cut. Subsequently, it was named Chemical Biopathology and now is called Institute of Biochemistry, which is the designation used in most medical schools in the world.
What can you tell us about the activities conducted at the Institute with regard to training, education, research and relationship with the community?
We try to have a close relationship between teaching and research and do both with quality. This is what is expected of a university. The University of Lisbon is what one calls a research-oriented university. We have welcomed many students, for example, in research projects, both in the Scientific Research Traineeship subject, and in GAPIC projects. We encourage the maximum possible number of students to carry out research. We also do the opposite: we guarantee that all lecturers of the Institute of Biochemistry are very active in research. We only have lecturers who are directly involved in research, with the exception of guest lecturers, as not all of them conduct research. Still, all of them are clinicians. Thus, we guarantee that students of Biochemistry are exposed to research through lecturers who are researchers, or to clinical practice, through lecturers who are clinicians. Accordingly, we follow the most advanced directives for the teaching of Biochemistry in Medicine. I was also a member of the Education Committee of FEBS (Federation of European Biochemical Societies), where these issues are much debated and where we get the best benchmarking to implement here.
Are lecturers invited to participate in research projects, or do you try to attract researchers to FMUL to teach? Are the researchers called to teach, or is it lecturers who are invited to participate in research?
Nowadays, and given that the number of places is very limited, all the people who join us have a history of research and much credit in this area. We no longer hire “promising young talents”, only minimally known and experienced people.
As to the pedagogical mission, and when it comes to training those who will be our future doctors, what are the goals you have set with regard to their training?
We are involved in biochemistry in the Integrated Master Degree in Medicine (IMDM), in the degree in Health Sciences, in the Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering, in partnership with the Higher Technical Institute (IST), and also in the Master Degree in Biomedical Technologies, among others. Anyway, we have a particular focus on the IMDM, and our main goal is to provide students with reasoning at a molecular scale. We abandoned the classic and exclusive perspective of Biochemistry, excessively focused on describing metabolisms, and adopted a more modern view of Biochemistry centred on the reasoning of molecules and on their interaction. This means that in terms of metabolism, we do not focus on describing it, rather on its regulation, because the molecular bases of homeostasis and its disturbance lie in it. It is also where the focus, for example, of all pharmacology and pharmacotherapy is. For instance, knowing how drugs act requires knowing very well what molecules determine metabolism, how they work and how they interact with each other. It is a reasoning that one acquires by considering molecules in their structure, function and the basic factors that determine their interaction.
This is modern Biochemistry and this is what we do, because it equips students with tools that later will enable them to reason in many clinical fields, whether they work on therapies or physiological stress, for example, or conduct research, or even something different.
Like other highly skilled professionals today, doctors must be equipped with a logical reasoning that allows them to be good at everything they do. That is what we try to do in the teaching of biochemistry: ensure students acquire flexibility of thought and capacity to adapt. We abandoned altogether merely descriptive reasoning, which required students to know everything there is to know about glycolysis, including the name of all enzymes, but lacked the ability to reason about the dynamics of metabolism.
This is one of the reasons why we try to bring research to teaching. This is because there are things one only learns by doing and cannot be taught by talking alone. The cultivation of curiosity, of critical thinking, cannot be taught in a classroom. There are no classes on critical thinking, as it is something one exercises. Biochemistry can help because it is a laboratory science – it draws students to the laboratory, exposing them to research projects. Biochemistry maintains an education that is not just theoretical and theoretical-practical, it is laboratory. We offer those three areas of teaching for a more complete education of our students, as they use the bench, handle and manipulate.
Many medical schools have abandoned this approach because practical training (particularly laboratory) is expensive. One of the easiest, although not very reasonable, ways of saving on costs is to end laboratory teaching. Luckily here at FMUL we have stuck to our priorities. We have cut other expenses that we do not consider to be essential, believing that the quality of education is a vital good. It is what makes the most sense because it is that quality that guarantees our future. We cannot solve the problems of the present by mortgaging the future, that is, giving up what is important in the long run. Fortunately, we have had the vision to keep this investment.
This strategy applies not only to Biochemistry, but also to other areas. We have maintained practical education in numerous areas, both microscopic and macroscopic ones. As an example we have the Anatomical Theatre, which was a major investment.
We even have return on the part of foreign students who choose our Faculty for programmes such as ERASMUS, stating that one of the main reasons for choosing FMUL is precisely the prevalence of this investment on practical education. Were you aware of this?
I was not aware of this, but I am very pleased that it happens. This philosophy of investing in practice, which in the case of Biochemistry means laboratory and in other disciplines could mean other things, including exposure to health centres from an early stage, has been a very positive distinct aspect of our Faculty. I hope that this trend continues and makes us different from other institutions and other training offers, because having this positive differentiation will be important in future.
More and more students applying to higher education are beginning to distinguish the various educational offers. It is increasingly noted that only a few institutions have prestige and success in inspiring confidence in students and their families. All surveys to date show that the criteria behind making a decision about a university and a degree involve a decision that is influenced by, and shared decision with, the family, and also former lecturers. So, all the credibility that we have with the families and lecturers is extremely important to succeed in attracting the best students each year. We want not just students; we want to have the best students.
Today there are holders of master degrees in Medicine who fear unemployment…
I think this issue has been overdramatized; there is a change, the context is rapidly changing, but one should not overdramatize. The issue of diversity of careers in medicine will come up because the world has changed and people no longer see their lives as an unbroken line from A to B. There is a series of intermediate options and each person will have to make his or her own way; this applies to everything, to our career, private life, family life etc. In general terms, employability is changing. Even so, the area of medicine is better than most careers.
What can you tell us about the contribution of the Institute of Biochemistry in terms of its partnerships and relationships with other bodies that form the Academic Medical Centre?
Our relationship with the Institute of Molecular Medicine is almost of complete overlap. All researchers of the Institute of Biochemistry are researchers at the IMM. Lecturers/researchers of the Institute of Biochemistry are divided into four research units that are connected to the IMM. There is total commitment and allocation of resources. Regarding our collaboration with Santa Maria Hospital, we have made very significant bridges between what is typically the field of Biochemistry with several clinical fields. We made a big investment connecting to clinical research conducted at Santa Maria Hospital and other hospitals.
How about the connection with patients...
The connection with SMH clinicians is automatically a liaison with patients. Research is done for patients. If not for them, then it is hardly worth doing it.
We are committed that our research is used for the benefit of people. This necessarily involves the industry. We are always concerned about transforming ideas into new products that may be used by industry, which, in turn, may generate other products available to people and the sick. I mean products in the widest sense, not strictly material ones. For example, new therapeutic procedures are also considered a product. The final idea is always the wellbeing of patients, health, and improved quality of life. I speak of patients and their families, since the impact of the disease is not restricted to the patient.
We coordinated a European project that ended recently to develop an analgesic that involved precisely the university and the industry. The entire project was designed to generate patents and may later be developed by the industry. The aim was to create new analgesics, which we have achieved. Everything was done right from the start with the collaboration between the university and businesses. The project was oriented to lead to new products, in this case new analgesics. This is different from an academic group discovering something and then publish, with the possibility of later being discovered by the industry or not, running the risk of no longer be patented. It should be a concern, right from the onset, to bring together the right partners and do everything right from beginning to end. We patent what there is to be patented, and then publish it. This requires a partnership of principles, planning and an intention to do things this way. For this reason, it is important to have good projects and good partners from the very beginning, cultivating bridges with the clinic, hospitals and the industry, and be able to act in an organized manner. This is what we have been trying to do at the Institute of Biochemistry. We increasingly have more joint projects with the industry and clinical partners. Advancing it all collectively is hard work, but it is the right way to do it, and this is the path we must follow.
When you speak of partners, do you mean educational institutions, laboratories or companies? All kinds of entities?
I mean all kinds of institutions conducting quality research or innovation that have what we need. In this type of integrated projects, we have to add pieces from the beginning. For example, we do not have synthetic organic chemistry. We do not build molecules. Therefore, we have associated with laboratories in Spain that synthesize molecules. We are biochemists working in various areas related to viruses, but we do not have the means to cultivate and manipulate viruses. Therefore, we associate with people who have that capacity, either in Portugal or, for example, in Brazil. There are international mobility and cooperation programmes. We coordinate one. Professor Nuno Santos is coordinating an intercontinental cooperation project. The challenge is to guarantee lasting funding and sustainability mechanisms for the research activity. It is a constant struggle.
Newsletter: what can you tell us about the origin of the Institute?
Professor Miguel Castanho: most people will not be aware of this, but Biochemistry in Portugal was born here. Historically, there are two major sources for Biochemistry in Portugal. One is Organic Chemistry. Germany was the birthplace of Organic Chemistry in Europe, and it entered Portugal thanks to a German researcher called Kurt Jacobson. The other is Physiological Chemistry, which is more associated with Medicine. This second branch was born at the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon. The Institute has this historical legacy: being one of the cradles of Biochemistry in Portugal. The reference person in this birth of Biochemistry was Mark Athias. He is best known for his histological studies, but he also attempted to do the reasoning of chemical reactions and chemical phenomena within cells. It was Mark Athias who did much of the seminal work in Biochemistry in Portugal and we are heirs of this legacy.
The Institute has gone through several phases. It started by being called Physiological Chemistry. Incidentally, the institute was simply called “chemistry” by many people, as a short cut. Subsequently, it was named Chemical Biopathology and now is called Institute of Biochemistry, which is the designation used in most medical schools in the world.
What can you tell us about the activities conducted at the Institute with regard to training, education, research and relationship with the community?
We try to have a close relationship between teaching and research and do both with quality. This is what is expected of a university. The University of Lisbon is what one calls a research-oriented university. We have welcomed many students, for example, in research projects, both in the Scientific Research Traineeship subject, and in GAPIC projects. We encourage the maximum possible number of students to carry out research. We also do the opposite: we guarantee that all lecturers of the Institute of Biochemistry are very active in research. We only have lecturers who are directly involved in research, with the exception of guest lecturers, as not all of them conduct research. Still, all of them are clinicians. Thus, we guarantee that students of Biochemistry are exposed to research through lecturers who are researchers, or to clinical practice, through lecturers who are clinicians. Accordingly, we follow the most advanced directives for the teaching of Biochemistry in Medicine. I was also a member of the Education Committee of FEBS (Federation of European Biochemical Societies), where these issues are much debated and where we get the best benchmarking to implement here.
Are lecturers invited to participate in research projects, or do you try to attract researchers to FMUL to teach? Are the researchers called to teach, or is it lecturers who are invited to participate in research?
Nowadays, and given that the number of places is very limited, all the people who join us have a history of research and much credit in this area. We no longer hire “promising young talents”, only minimally known and experienced people.
As to the pedagogical mission, and when it comes to training those who will be our future doctors, what are the goals you have set with regard to their training?
We are involved in biochemistry in the Integrated Master Degree in Medicine (IMDM), in the degree in Health Sciences, in the Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering, in partnership with the Higher Technical Institute (IST), and also in the Master Degree in Biomedical Technologies, among others. Anyway, we have a particular focus on the IMDM, and our main goal is to provide students with reasoning at a molecular scale. We abandoned the classic and exclusive perspective of Biochemistry, excessively focused on describing metabolisms, and adopted a more modern view of Biochemistry centred on the reasoning of molecules and on their interaction. This means that in terms of metabolism, we do not focus on describing it, rather on its regulation, because the molecular bases of homeostasis and its disturbance lie in it. It is also where the focus, for example, of all pharmacology and pharmacotherapy is. For instance, knowing how drugs act requires knowing very well what molecules determine metabolism, how they work and how they interact with each other. It is a reasoning that one acquires by considering molecules in their structure, function and the basic factors that determine their interaction.
This is modern Biochemistry and this is what we do, because it equips students with tools that later will enable them to reason in many clinical fields, whether they work on therapies or physiological stress, for example, or conduct research, or even something different.
Like other highly skilled professionals today, doctors must be equipped with a logical reasoning that allows them to be good at everything they do. That is what we try to do in the teaching of biochemistry: ensure students acquire flexibility of thought and capacity to adapt. We abandoned altogether merely descriptive reasoning, which required students to know everything there is to know about glycolysis, including the name of all enzymes, but lacked the ability to reason about the dynamics of metabolism.
This is one of the reasons why we try to bring research to teaching. This is because there are things one only learns by doing and cannot be taught by talking alone. The cultivation of curiosity, of critical thinking, cannot be taught in a classroom. There are no classes on critical thinking, as it is something one exercises. Biochemistry can help because it is a laboratory science – it draws students to the laboratory, exposing them to research projects. Biochemistry maintains an education that is not just theoretical and theoretical-practical, it is laboratory. We offer those three areas of teaching for a more complete education of our students, as they use the bench, handle and manipulate.
Many medical schools have abandoned this approach because practical training (particularly laboratory) is expensive. One of the easiest, although not very reasonable, ways of saving on costs is to end laboratory teaching. Luckily here at FMUL we have stuck to our priorities. We have cut other expenses that we do not consider to be essential, believing that the quality of education is a vital good. It is what makes the most sense because it is that quality that guarantees our future. We cannot solve the problems of the present by mortgaging the future, that is, giving up what is important in the long run. Fortunately, we have had the vision to keep this investment.
This strategy applies not only to Biochemistry, but also to other areas. We have maintained practical education in numerous areas, both microscopic and macroscopic ones. As an example we have the Anatomical Theatre, which was a major investment.
We even have return on the part of foreign students who choose our Faculty for programmes such as ERASMUS, stating that one of the main reasons for choosing FMUL is precisely the prevalence of this investment on practical education. Were you aware of this?
I was not aware of this, but I am very pleased that it happens. This philosophy of investing in practice, which in the case of Biochemistry means laboratory and in other disciplines could mean other things, including exposure to health centres from an early stage, has been a very positive distinct aspect of our Faculty. I hope that this trend continues and makes us different from other institutions and other training offers, because having this positive differentiation will be important in future.
More and more students applying to higher education are beginning to distinguish the various educational offers. It is increasingly noted that only a few institutions have prestige and success in inspiring confidence in students and their families. All surveys to date show that the criteria behind making a decision about a university and a degree involve a decision that is influenced by, and shared decision with, the family, and also former lecturers. So, all the credibility that we have with the families and lecturers is extremely important to succeed in attracting the best students each year. We want not just students; we want to have the best students.
Today there are holders of master degrees in Medicine who fear unemployment…
I think this issue has been overdramatized; there is a change, the context is rapidly changing, but one should not overdramatize. The issue of diversity of careers in medicine will come up because the world has changed and people no longer see their lives as an unbroken line from A to B. There is a series of intermediate options and each person will have to make his or her own way; this applies to everything, to our career, private life, family life etc. In general terms, employability is changing. Even so, the area of medicine is better than most careers.
What can you tell us about the contribution of the Institute of Biochemistry in terms of its partnerships and relationships with other bodies that form the Academic Medical Centre?
Our relationship with the Institute of Molecular Medicine is almost of complete overlap. All researchers of the Institute of Biochemistry are researchers at the IMM. Lecturers/researchers of the Institute of Biochemistry are divided into four research units that are connected to the IMM. There is total commitment and allocation of resources. Regarding our collaboration with Santa Maria Hospital, we have made very significant bridges between what is typically the field of Biochemistry with several clinical fields. We made a big investment connecting to clinical research conducted at Santa Maria Hospital and other hospitals.
How about the connection with patients...
The connection with SMH clinicians is automatically a liaison with patients. Research is done for patients. If not for them, then it is hardly worth doing it.
We are committed that our research is used for the benefit of people. This necessarily involves the industry. We are always concerned about transforming ideas into new products that may be used by industry, which, in turn, may generate other products available to people and the sick. I mean products in the widest sense, not strictly material ones. For example, new therapeutic procedures are also considered a product. The final idea is always the wellbeing of patients, health, and improved quality of life. I speak of patients and their families, since the impact of the disease is not restricted to the patient.
We coordinated a European project that ended recently to develop an analgesic that involved precisely the university and the industry. The entire project was designed to generate patents and may later be developed by the industry. The aim was to create new analgesics, which we have achieved. Everything was done right from the start with the collaboration between the university and businesses. The project was oriented to lead to new products, in this case new analgesics. This is different from an academic group discovering something and then publish, with the possibility of later being discovered by the industry or not, running the risk of no longer be patented. It should be a concern, right from the onset, to bring together the right partners and do everything right from beginning to end. We patent what there is to be patented, and then publish it. This requires a partnership of principles, planning and an intention to do things this way. For this reason, it is important to have good projects and good partners from the very beginning, cultivating bridges with the clinic, hospitals and the industry, and be able to act in an organized manner. This is what we have been trying to do at the Institute of Biochemistry. We increasingly have more joint projects with the industry and clinical partners. Advancing it all collectively is hard work, but it is the right way to do it, and this is the path we must follow.
When you speak of partners, do you mean educational institutions, laboratories or companies? All kinds of entities?
I mean all kinds of institutions conducting quality research or innovation that have what we need. In this type of integrated projects, we have to add pieces from the beginning. For example, we do not have synthetic organic chemistry. We do not build molecules. Therefore, we have associated with laboratories in Spain that synthesize molecules. We are biochemists working in various areas related to viruses, but we do not have the means to cultivate and manipulate viruses. Therefore, we associate with people who have that capacity, either in Portugal or, for example, in Brazil. There are international mobility and cooperation programmes. We coordinate one. Professor Nuno Santos is coordinating an intercontinental cooperation project. The challenge is to guarantee lasting funding and sustainability mechanisms for the research activity. It is a constant struggle.
