Researchers from the Centre for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology (CIBB) Diogo Reis Carneiro and Neuza Domingues will receive the Maria de Sousa Award, presented by the Portuguese Medical Association and the Bial Foundation. With their research projects, funded by the award, the scientists aim to make new contributions to understanding Parkinson's disease and cellular aging.

The Maria de Sousa Award, named in honor of physician and researcher Maria de Sousa, is promoted by the Portuguese Medical Association and the Bial Foundation and aims to reward young Portuguese researchers, up to 35 years of age, by supporting research projects in the field of health sciences, which includes an internship at an international center of excellence.

Diogo Reis Carneiro, a neurologist and researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC-UC) and CiBB, as well as a doctoral student and guest assistant at the Faculty of Medicine at UC (FMUC), will develop the CaInPark project - Cardiovascular interoception: from neuroanatomical foundations to disruption in Parkinson's disease. This research focuses on the study of interoception (the physiological and psychological representation of the body's internal states, including the perception of the functioning of its organs, such as the beating of the heart or the filling of the bladder) in Parkinson's disease.

“Cardiovascular interoception may be a promising physiological and neural marker of body-brain interaction, so in this project we aim to deepen our understanding of cardiovascular interoception, characterizing its neurofunctional basis in healthy individuals and investigating its changes in individuals with Parkinson's disease, aspects that remain poorly understood”, explains Diogo Reis Carneiro.

Regarding the impact of this research, the researcher explains that “on the one hand, we aim to broaden our knowledge of interoceptive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease and relate it to autonomic dysfunction, but we also foresee the possibility of laying the foundations for knowledge so that, in the future, interoceptive modulation treatments (which help to better understand bodily sensations) can be used, with scientific backing, in a population for which there are still many therapeutic gaps.”

The CaInPark project will be funded with €25,000, and part of the research will be carried out at the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Neuza Domingues, a researcher at the Multidisciplinary Institute of Aging (MIA Portugal) and CiBB, will lead the project Nuclear lysosomes: unraveling the communication between lysosomes and the nucleus. This project will investigate the communication system between lysosomes and the nucleus (the cellular compartment that stores genetic information), seeking to identify the proteins involved in this contact and understand how they influence the function of these two organelles under conditions of stress or disease.

“One of the organelles most affected during the cellular aging process is the lysosome, which is essential for the digestion of other damaged organelles and molecules. In addition to this ability to rid cells of toxic elements, the lysosome modulates cellular signaling pathways, as well as the function and dynamics of other organelles,” explains Neuza Domingues. “However, although the communication of lysosomes with organelles such as mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum has been well studied, little is known about their communication with the nucleus. In this context, this project aims to investigate the molecular mechanisms that regulate the contacts between the lysosome membrane and the nuclear membrane, at the molecular and functional levels,” she explains.

With this research, Neuza Domingues hopes to “demonstrate that the concomitant dysfunction of lysosomes and the nucleus is associated with a loss of communication between these two organelles, resulting in molecular membrane alterations and greater genomic instability. In the future, the characterization of these interactions will open up therapeutic opportunities for diseases of aging, from the modulation of homeostasis to the nuclear delivery of therapeutic agents.”

Neuza Domingues' project will be funded with €30,000, and part of the research will take place at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

The ceremony to announce the winners of the 5th edition of the Maria de Sousa Prize takes place in the afternoon of November 4, in Lisbon. More information about the Maria de Sousa Prize is available at www.fundacaobial.com/premios/premio-maria-de-sousa.

Catarina Ribeiro (UC)