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BSCB Newsletter Winter 2000

Cell biology in Europe - Portugal

Alvaro Tavares

Although Portugal is not traditionally known for its scientific tradition, Cell Biology has been, none the less, one of the more active areas of research. Entry into the European Community in 1986 was welcomed at all levels of society, and led to an explosion of new construction (roads, public buildings, institutes, etc), and the standards of living have risen enormously. Entry into the EU was especially important for scientific research, as it brought significant improvements in funding. With a higher budget, research centres could enhance the numbers of graduate students, the quality of supervision and offer first class formal education in the form of practical and lecture courses. There was a huge effort in crafting opportunities and a great number of the PhD fellowships attributed are for work in a foreign country (42%).

Figure 1. In Portugal the largest research centres are located in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra.

The amount of time required to finish graduate studies has also changed. New Portuguese PhDs were not competitive with their European peers because of traditionally long graduate studies. Things have changed drastically, and graduate studies are now being completed in fewer years (approaching an average of four to five years). The number of PhD dissertations in Portuguese universities has increased by 10% a year for the last ten years (depending on the area; biology, for example, had an increase of 16%). As a consequence, Portugal has one of the highest increases in the number of researchers in Europe: between 1992 and 1995 the increase was around 7% while the average of the EU was 1.9%. But it should be said that the number of researchers in the country is still relatively low compared to the other European countries (2.4% of the active population compared to 4.6% across the EU) so there is still some road to travel and plenty of opportunities for newcomers.

The money attributed to science has also been steadily increasing — now 0.6% of the PIB (although the EU average is 1.9%) — and there has been an increase in scientific collaboration with other countries over the last 20 years. In 1980, 28% of the papers were the result of collaborations; by 1996, this number had increased to 49%, the UK being the country with most scientific co-operation. The higher budget attributed to science attracted many of those who did their graduate or post-graduate studies abroad, and as a result many dynamic groups have emerged over the last decade. Furthermore, the Ministry of Science recently decided to strength molecular and cell biology research in Portugal by creating positions for investigators and to open new research institutes (most of which have not yet finished their recruiting). There is also now, for the first time, a situation where it is relatively easy to get a post-doc fellowship (and the candidate need not to be of Portuguese nationality).

Research and student life at Portuguese universities is very different from that at UK universities. In Portugal most research takes place at universities and in basic research institutions, with the drawback that most department and group heads have heavy teaching commitments.

Research sites in Lisbon
The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia (IGC) (www.igc.gulbenkian.pt) was founded and is supported by the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG) (www.gulbenkian.pt) to carry out biomedical research and education. The Institute’s scientific interests are focused on the genetic basis of development and evolution of complex systems, prioritising organism-centred approaches in experimental models. A strong theoretical sector (Estudos Avançados de Oeiras, EAO) is also one of the Institute’s specialities, the others being an investment on international exchange in the form of graduate courses, workshops and symposia.

Figure 2: IGC: The Institute Gulbenkian of Science, in Lisbon.

In 1997, the FCG decided to restructure the Institute. One of the first measures was the creation of an international Scientific Advisory Board that includes Sydney Brenner, Nicole Le Douarin, Martin Raff, Kai Simons, Susumu Tonegawa, Hans Wigzell and Lewis Wolpert. The IGC uses the flexibility of its private statute to operate as a ‘host institution’, offering excellent facilities and services to foreign and Portuguese research groups or individual scientists, in particular to post-doctoral fellows who are expected to develop their projects and form their groups in complete autonomy. Among the recently formed groups at the IGC are those of Jose Antonio Belo (anterior neural induction of the vertebrate embryo), Isabel Palmeirim (somite formation and vertebrate segmentation), Jose Feijo (mechanisms of plant cell growth and morphogenesis), Alvaro Tavares (cell cycle regulation), Pedro Simas and Michael Parkhouse (virus modulation of the immune response), Helena Soares and Lisete Fernandes (stress and dynamics of microtubules), and Jocelyne Demengeot (mechanisms that rule the immune system ability to exert self / non-self discrimination).

There is an effort to make the IGC an international research Center, and foreigners at the Institute (students, post-docs and group leaders) account for about one-third of the total working people. The Institute was almost completely re-built from the inside in the last 4 years and is now fully equipped for modern cell biology research (including an up to date multi-photon confocal microscope and a cell sorter), and since 1993 it has offered an attractive Ph.D. programme which is open to students from all over the world. The IGC is still in its recruiting phase for group leaders.

The IGC is located in the campus of Oeiras, a campus that includes other basic and applied research institutions in biology, biotechnology and chemistry (as the Institute for Chemical and Biological Technology, the Institute for Experimental Biology and Technology, and the National Agronomical Station) with complementary interests.

The Institute of Technology for Chemistry and Biology (ITQB; www.itqb.unl.pt) was established recently to facilitate scientific interactions between groups working on biotechnology and basic research. Although still growing, in these few years of existence it has succeeded in becoming a highly dynamic and high-profile Institute, with research activities covering a wide range of topics. The major groups in the Biology Division focus on: molecular epidemiology and the study of molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance (Herminia Lencastre), molecular mechanisms of morphogenesis (Paulo Tavares), regulation of transcription (Claudina Rodrigues-Pousada), mechanism and control of mRNA degradation (Cecilia Arraiano), plant biochemistry and morphogenesis (Jorge Almeida/Lizete Galego), role of oligosaccharides in the intracellular targeting of glycoproteins (Julia Costa), and the genetics and molecular biology of sporulation (Adriano Henriques). There is also a very strong group using non-invasive NMR techniques to study whole cell physiology (Antonio Xavier, Helena sanstos). The ITQB has a true international atmosphere with 42% of the post-graduates coming from foreign countries.

Another Institute located at the Oeiras campus is the Institute for Experimental Biology and Technology (IBET; www.ibet.pt), the largest private-non-profit biotechnology research organisation in Portugal. It brings together public institutions and private companies as partners and collaborators. IBET’s targeted economic areas are pharmaceuticals and health care, agroforestry, agroindustry and the environment. Areas of research at IBET are cell biology and biochemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology.

Also in Lisbon is the Centre for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CEBIP; www.fm.ul.pt), created in 1991 and located at the Lisbon Faculty of Medicine. CEBIP aims to foster research in the field of molecular and cell biology and its application to the study of human disease. At present, the research groups at CEBIP have scientific interests ranging from basic research on regulation of gene expression to clinical aspects of cellular immunology and cancer biology. As well as using common laboratory infrastructures, the researchers working at CEBIP benefit from sharing expertise in a variety of experimental methodologies specific to each group. The CEBIP harbours groups working on fields as diverse as molecular and cell biology, cellular immunology, skin biology and pathology, developmental biology, blood-cell differentiation and cancer biology.

The major scientific interest of the Molecular and Cell Biology group at the CEBIP (M. Carmo-Fonseca) is to understand how gene expression is regulated within the spatial and temporal environment provided by the living cell nucleus. The Developmental Biology group (Domingos Henrique) investigates the molecular and cellular mechanisms that originate the vertebrate nervous system. The Cellular Immunology group develops clinical immunology research projects in the areas of HIV immunopathogenesis and T cells in drug allergy. The Hematopoietic Biology group is interested on the mechanisms controlling the differentiation of blood cells (Leonor Parreira). The Cancer Biology and Experimental Therapy Group aims to study the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the acquisition of a selective advantage by human cancer.

Some groups working on Cell Biology can be found at the Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon (www.fc.ul.pt), for example in the Center for Genetics and Molecular Biology (Genetic Analysis of Cell Division in Drosophila; Rui Gomes) and in the Center for Cell Biology and Plant Biotechnology (Plant Cell Biology; Salomé Pais, José Barroso, and Rui Malho).

Research sites outside Lisbon

Created in 1290, the University of Coimbra (www.uc.pt) is one of the oldest in Europe. With a population of around 21 000 students and strong medical and biochemical tradition and facilities, it is an excellent place to study. The University is divided into several faculties, and research usually involves collaborations between different faculties. The Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) was founded in 1990. Members of the staff of three faculties — Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Pharmacy — form the scientific core of the CNC, which made it possible to integrate from the beginning some groups with a long-standing tradition in research.

The CNC is a research unit that covers various interdisciplinary areas, with cell biology as a dominant area of research. The Department of Cell Biology focuses on neurosecretion in isolated nerve terminals, cell death (apoptosis) and excitotoxicology (Arsélio Carvalho, Carlos Duarte, Celeste Lopes). The Department of Neurochemistry’s main objectives include studies of neurodegeneration and molecular mechanisms of membrane fusion (Catarina Oliveira, Maria Pedroso Lima), while the Department of Molecular Biology (Euclides Pires) is concerned with the structure—function relationship of proteins.

In Porto, the Molecular and Cellular Biology Institute (IBMC; www.ibmc.up.pt) was created recently, and is one of the largest institutes dedicated to basic science in Portugal. Many groups were already working at other departments of the University of Porto and were transferred to the IBMC, bringing with them a lot of expertise to the benefit of the many young groups that were also created. The more international groups are interested in the molecular genetics and biogenesis of mitochondria (Arnaldo Videira), the molecular genetics of cell division (Claudio Sunkel), molecular structure (Ana Damas), molecular immunology (Maria de Sousa), microbiology and immunology of infection (Rui Appelberg), morphophysiology (D. Lima), and stress in micro-organisms (Pedro M. Ferreira).

There are still some small dispersed groups working in other institutes. For example, at the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology (www.ipatimup.pt), Manuel Sobrinho-Simoes’ group is looking at health sciences and health related issues with an emphasis on oncobiology. The Cellular Biology Center, University of Aveiro (www.bio.ua.pt), created in 1997 under the direction of Edgar Cruz e Silva, has interests in plant physiology, neurosciences, biochemistry, toxicology and microbiology.

Living in Portugal

At the extreme southwest corner of Europe, Portugal has a population of just under 10 million and a pleasanst climate all year round. Portugal is relatively free of crime and the people are generally very open and amicable, which makes it easy for foreigners to adapt to live in the country. Knowledge of the English language is common in the Portuguese population, especially among the younger generations, so most shopping can be done with no knowledge of the Portuguese language. Unlike most European countries, TV programs and films at the cinemas are not dubbed (meaning that the language is English most of the time). Living is relatively cheap in Portugal (food, clothing and transportation are cheaper than in Britain, for example).

Lisbon, the capital, has a rich cultural life and many national museums and art galleries. Although small compared to other European capitals, Lisbon boasts an outstanding cultural calendar. The city hosts both modern and traditional events from classical music, ballet and opera to street festivals, fairs and pop and rock concerts that are held all year round. The city also offers excellent late-night entertainment. Walking, cycling, riding and watersports (such as surfing, windsurfing, and sailing) are widely enjoyed and easily arranged. Winter sports are a little harder to come by.