Maria Mota, a researcher at IMM and professor at FMUL, Andreia Rosa, a physician at the Coimbra Hospital and University Centre and Rui Costa, a neuroscientist at the Champalimaud Foundation, were the winners of the 2017 Pfizer Awards, the oldest distinction in the field of biomedical research in our country. The Pfizer Awards were established by a partnership between the Pfizer laboratories and the Society of Medical Sciences of Lisbon, in the category of Clinical Research and are worth 20 thousand euros.
Maria Mota and her team demonstrated that a caloric reduction of 30% in the diet slows the multiplication of the malaria parasite, which makes the infection less aggressive.
As we read in the 21 November news from Público, «in the category of Basic Research there were two winning projects. Maria Manuel Mota is the leader of the IMM team that has clarified yet another important mechanism on the malaria parasite that still kills one child every two minutes, according to data from the World Health Organization. The team showed that a caloric reduction of 30% in the diet of mice with malaria did slow down the infection. The work thus demonstrates that the malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum, which only affects humans and is transmitted by the bite of anopheles mosquitoes) has "the sensory ability to determine the nutritional status of the host”.»
Read the full Público news here.



Credits: Público