i3S researchers awarded honorable mention

i3S researchers Cátia Pereira and Fátima Macedo, currently working in the Cell Activation & Gene Expression group, were recently handed an honorable mention in the scope of the Janssen Awards for Innovation 2016. This acknowledgement cements the success of their project "Fabry disease's main glycolipid, globotriaosylceramide, inhibits iNKT cells' activation".

"Our team is mostly interested in iNKT cells, a cluster of lipid-activated T cells", Cátia Pereira explains. "We were able to show that, besides the lipids that activate these cells, there are other competing inhibitors", she further elucidates, "In this study, we identified another inhibitory lipid - globotriaosylceramide - naturally present in normal cells but whose levels are heightened in people suffering from Fabry disease, a rare metabolic disease."
According to the researcher, "this work could potentially be applied in a clinical setting: if the volume of stimulant lipids is modified, in comparison to the volume of inhibitory lipids, it is possible to modulate the response of iNKT, which are known to interfere in autoimmune diseases, infections and cancer."

For Cátia Pereira, this honorable mention is a "very important acknowledgement of our work and recognizes its innovative nature, as well as the potential clinical use. It gives us a boost and encourages us to keep up our work in basic research, however bearing in mind the ultimate goal of translating the results into clinical practice."  

Fátima Macedo is also quite pleased with the distinction. "I very much appreciate this acknowledgement because of what it represents: the public recognition of the scientific work we have been carrying out for the past few years."

The Janssen Award for Innovation was born out of a partnership between Janssen Portugal and Universidade Católica Portuguesa and aims to distinguish scientific work developed at an excellent standard in Portuguese institutions, at least partially, in the fields of metabolic diseases, hematology-oncology, immunology, infectiology and neurosciences.