Getting close to the finish line....

My Marie Curie fellowship will end on March 31^st, and since I’m in my last lap I’m working really hard to get as many results as possible before it is over. It looks quite good actually. I’m currently writing up a paper about some spectroscopic and electrochemical studies I have done on my proteins, and I have recently obtained some protein crystals of what I hope is protein in complex with DNA (see picture), which will bring my project a lot further if we can get the structure of it. Protein crystals are so beautiful, and I always get a big kick when I see them appear. I also have some more stuff going on, so my hope is to get three papers published based on what I have done during my project. I have learned so many new things here at the ITQB (which is one of the goals of a MC-fellowship), and made many new friends and collaborators, so I’m really happy with my stay and would never have been without it. 

Have a nice weekend!

Visit from the University in Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway

This week I have had visitors from the University of Tromsø (UiT) or UiT The Arctic University of Norway as it is called now, at the ITQB. After the visit to the ITQB I followed the delegation on a small tour of Portugal which aimed to find new partners for Horizon 2020 applications. The tour went from Lisbon to Cantanhede, were we had a meeting with researchers from Biocant, on the following day we met scientists at the department of Biology at the University of Aveiro (http://uaonline.ua.pt/pub/detail.asp?c=35770) and on the third day we visited the University of Porto. After the meetings in Aveiro our host Joaquim Macedo de Sousa took us the cod fish museum in Ilhavo (were we gave the guide a hard time discussing the weight of the biggest cod ever caught by a Portuguese :-), the lovely beaches outside Aveiro and showed us some of the typical houses in Costa Nova just outside Aveiro. And in Porto, our hosts Vitor Vasconselos at CIIMAR and Vice rector Jorge Gonçalves showed us the spectacular future building for the CIIMAR (which will be co-located with the future cruise ship terminal for Porto) in Matosinhos outside Porto. We were very well received in all the places we visited, and common research interest in various fields of marine research were identified, so I'm positive that partnerships will be made for some future Horizon 2020 applications.

Me on the Costa Nova beach outside Aveiro

The typical houses outside Aveiro

Vitor Vasconselos, Matti Blencke, Trond Jørgensen and Luisa Bastos are listening carefully to the chief engineer on the building site of the new CIIMAR building outside Porto 

The view from the outdoor auditorium on the roof of the building

The building as it is today

A poster showing how the building will look like when it is finished

Project proposals for the future.....

After a nice holiday here in sunny Portugal, life is all about writing project proposals. I'll submit one to the Research Council of Norway (RCN) on September 4^th (BIOTEK2021) and another one to the Portuguese research council (the FCT Investigator Programme) on September 10^th. One is based on my recently established collaborations within marine biotechnology here in Portugal (University of Azores and BioCant), the other one to continue my research within DNA repair. It keeps me busy day and night now, but what can you do? My Marie Curie fellowship will be over on March 31^st 2014 and I would like to continue with my research somewhere – I just need another grant, and then another one, and then another one, and that’s probably how it’s going to be until the end of my career. It is sad, but true - the conditions for young (in my case - soon middle aged:) scientists in Europe is difficult, and a lot of us will still for many years have to fight about money for a salary in order to continue our search for answers on our hypothesis. Here in Portugal the situation is extremely difficult now because of the economic crisis, and the country has to see many brilliant young scientists leaving to pursue an academic career in other counties. It’s a shame because they have already invested a lot of money in their young scientists through scientific programmes which started about ten years ago, and now they have to see their investment go away. These young people would be important keep here, to help out in the reconstruction of the country when the crisis is over, but when the alternative is unemployment…..

Anyway, I should get going on my proposals again – every minute is precious now J

Have a nice weekend J

This week I'm attending...

.... the 6th CERMAX practical course on basic NMR(Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) here at the ITQB. It's a bit heavy for a soft molecular and structural biology brain - its been a while since I read anything about quantum mechanics - but I already feel that it is going to be useful. Perhaps I can determine 3D structures of some of my small proteins which don't want to crystallise!

Then I will probably use the Avance II+ - 800 MHz NMR spectrometer which you can see in the picture here (from the CERMAX homepage). It is the highest field operating NMR spectrometer in Portugal and is well suited for structural studies of small to medium size molecules, and especially for determination of 3D structures of proteins in solution.

Have a spinning week :-)

News from Portugal

Since last time I wrote I have had another exam in Portuguese at Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. It didn’t go very well, but at least I passed J Now I’m finished with level B1, with level B2 coming up (intermediate). The language is difficult to learn, especially when you don’t practise much, and for someone with no experience in Latin/Roman languages (like me), it is even more difficult. Just to give you an example of the complexity, a typical regular verb in Portuguese have 50 different forms, while in French it has only 30!!! However, because of the complexity you don’t have to use a lot of words to express what you want J

When it comes to the science, I have finally received some DNA that I ordered a long time ago, and we have tested it in electrochemistry experiments (cyclic voltammetry). We still don’t have any conclusive results, but we are getting there. I have ordered more DNA, which we will start using next week. On my “to do” list we also find more EPR and Raman spectroscopy experiments J I have also received some knock out mutants from my French collaborators that I will get going next week!

Then, on the following week I’ll take part in a NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) course (6th CERMAX practical course on basic NMR) which is given here at the ITQB. I look forward to that! Once again, I gain a lot from being in a multidisciplinary research institute.

This week there are two holidays here in Lisbon. On Monday (June 10^th) it was Portugal’s national day, and on June 13^th it is St. Anthony’s day and Lisbon municipality holiday. On this day, the “lisboetas” celebrate St. Anthony which was a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. He was canonized on 16 January 1946 and is the saint of finding things or lost people. He is also known as a marriage saint, because there are legends of him reconciling couples. On his feast day (actually the day before, at night on June 12^th) he is celebrated with “Marchas Populares” (folk parades) where cultural associations from different neighbourhoods in Lisbon march down Avenida de Liberdade (Lisbons main boulevard) whilst singing and dancing (choreographed) in spectacular colourful outfits, a mass wedding (12 couples get married at the same time in the Sé cathedral – they also take part in the popular march) and street parties in all the traditional districts of Lisbon (e.g. Alfama, Mouraria, Bica and Madragoa) with grilled sardines! So if you want to visit Lisbon at a time with lots of action, I think 12^th and 13^th of June is a good choice J

Here is a picture from 2010 (from the Portugal news online).

Happy holidays!

Visitors from Innovation Norway (Tromsø office)

Today I recieved a group of visitors from Innovation Norway (the Tromsø office) and a representative from the Norwegian embassy here at the ITQB. The guests learnt more about the ITQB, IBET and BioCant, and I told them about the emerging marine biotech project that I'm involved in here in Portugal. I was excited and very nervous, but I think it went fine. We finished the visit with a nice lunch at Hotel Praia Mar with an excellent view to the sea and Lisbon :-) Pictures will be posted later!
See news at the ITQB homepage!

Open day at the ITQB

Tomorrow, Saturday April 20th, the doors to the ITQB will be open (dia aberto) for visitors who wants to know more about science and research conducted at our institute. There will be activities for children (experiments) and guided tours to see our facilities. It will also be possible to meet scientists and students at the ITQB and ask whatever question you might have about science and/or about being a scientist. I think this is a very good initiative, and a good opportunity for young people to get to know more about the profession (or rather the lifestyle:) scientist.

Welcome!

New IEF call

I know that there is a new call out there now (MARIE CURIE INTRA-EUROPEAN FELLOWSHIPS FOR CAREER DEVELOPMENT), and if anyone has questions regarding the writing of the proposal or how to organise your work, please don't hesitate to contact me! If you are from Norway, I can also recomment you to contact the National contact points for Marie Curie Actions at the Research Council of Norway (you'll find them here). They are always very helpful!

This week I'm off to Paris to work in the lab of Professor Suzanne Sommer at Paris Sud Universite :-) A nice break in the everyday life here!

Até proxima!

New collaborations and results

It has been a long time since posted anything here now. I suppose it means that I have been busy J

I sure have. Regarding the Norway – Portugal collaboration within marine biotechnology, we have had more meetings and are now planning to formalise the collaboration in a meeting at the University of Tromsø in the end of February. My Portuguese collaborators and I am going there to participate in a conference about marine bioprospecting (BioProsp 2013) and at the same time have meetings with our Norwegian collaborators. The aim is to determine a common goal for our research, to decide who is going to do what and when, and sign a collaboration contract. I really look forward to this meeting, to finish this part of the planning so that we can go ahead with the research and start writing and submit project proposals to various funding sources.

Regarding my project, I have also obtained a lot of good results recently. I have used both Raman spectroscopy and performed electrochemistry experiments in order to obtain more information about my proteins. This is techniques I have never used before, so I have of course been completely dependent on receiving help from other scientists (big thanks to Murat Sezer and Smilja Todorovic). It has been fun, and very interesting, and I look forward to continuing these experiments during the winter and spring.

I have also recently been to Paris, where I had a meeting with Professor Suzanne Sommer who is an expert on Deinococcus radiodurans at Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie, Université Paris-Sud. We had a very interesting meeting, and I’m very happy to announce that we have established collaboration. This collaboration will be very important in order for me to test the entire hypothesis I have described in my Marie Curie fellowship proposal, and I really look forward to get going on this work.

Regarding time. I have already finished ten out of my twenty four months here at ITQB. Time goes by very fast, and I’m getting worried that I won’t have time to finish everything that I wanted to do. However, the road changes as you start walking, and I have already used two other methods that I had not described in my project proposal. I have really benefitted immensely from working in a multidisciplinary research institute, however learning new things takes time. I do hope the European commission sees the value of this and forgive me for not following my experimental setup-plan in detail when they evaluate my mid-term report.

Greetings from warm (17°C) and sunny Portugal!

Expert meeting about commercialisation of marine biotechnology

On October 11th, I went to Faro (University of Algarve) to attend an expert meeting about commercialisation of marine biotechnology. The meeting was arranged by the Royal Embassy of Norway, and the participants consisted of both Norwegian and Portuguese scientists, companies and funding agencies. The aim of the meeting was to generate a basis for bilateral scientific and industrial collaborations within the field between the two countries and to inform the participants about available funding resources for their collaborations. A brief summary of the meeting can be found here (in Portuguese):

We had round table discussions about potential collaboration topics (picture taken by 

Åshild Fløgstad Svensson from the Embassy)

As a result of this meeting I’m going to meet scientists from the University of Azores and BioCant in Cantanhede (close to Coimbra) next week, to discuss potential future collaboration projects between these two groups, my research associates at the University of Tromsø (UiT) and me here at the ITQB. The idea is work out collaboration projects for which we will apply for funding from both The Research Council of Norway (RCN) and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) in Portugal.

I really appreciate this initiative from the Norwegian Embassy in Portugal and I hope they follow up on it. During the meeting it was clearly illustrated that there is a big potential for collaborative projects within marine biotechnology which both countries would benefit from in the future, and there are funding recourses available for this both in Norway and in Portugal. However, for purely scientific collaborations there is still a job to do, and my wish is that the RCN and the FCT establishes a bilateral research programme from which we could apply directly for funding for collaborations with fellow Portuguese scientists.

If I had not been here in Portugal doing my Marie Curie fellowship I would never have been invited (or invited myself as I in fact did) to go to this meeting. I think this illustrates very well the value of going abroad for some time during your research career. I have now been able to establish new scientific contacts which I would never get if I was working in Norway at this moment.


By the way, Faro is a nice place to visit, and it takes less than three hours to get there from Lisbon by car. I really envy the Portuguese their highway system - we can only dream about have something like that in Norway :-)

Anaerobic conditions and holidays

The last couple of weeks we have faced some problems in the lab, but we have overcome them, and are now ready for the EPR experiment next week. This time we purified our protein anaerobically, which means that we have performed all the work in an anaerobic chamber (it looks more or less like the one in the photo from the manufacturer Belle Technology). This makes the work a bit more cumbersome, since you have to remove the oxygen from all the solutions and the equipment you are using for the purification, and do all the work inside the chamber using thick gloves. I'm sure Margarida agrees with me, since she did most of the work in the chamber which is located in one of the cold rooms :-)

Tomorrow (October 5th) it is a holiday in Portugal. It is the Republic day, "Implantação da República", which celebrates the end of the monarchy and the beginning of the Portuguese republic in 1910. Due to the financial crisis in the country it has been decided to cancel this holiday from next year on, so it is the last time the Portuguese will have this holiday. So, I should perhaps say, happy last Republic holiday! Not so sure the people will really enjoy it since it looks like most of them will face a 4% increase in tax from next year on…..

Article about my project in "Forskerforum"

Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you that an article about my research has been published in the Journal for the members of the The Norwegian Association of Researchers (NAR) , "Forskerforum". In an interview with my PhD student Kjersti Lian they are describing our interest in studying the DNA repair systems in Deinococcus radiodurans :-) Read the whole article here (page 26-28)! Kjersti, thank you for your effort!!!







Travelling, holidays and new techniques

In the end of July I went to Grenoble, to visit my PhD student who at the time was working in the lab of Dr. Joanna Timmins at the Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS). I had two good days there, discussing the last results and making plans for the last six months of the project. It is always good to come to Grenoble. I have been a visitor in the Structural Biology Group at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) a couple of times, so it's almost like coming home:-)

In August, I went on holidays...... in Portugal. It is really a wonderful country, which has so many interesting places to visit. This time I went to Caramulo, a small town in the centre of the country, relatively close to Viseu. Even though it is a very small place it has a very nice museum, Museu do Caramulo, with a big art and car collection - not the kind of museum you expect to find in a small place like this. Other than the museum, the place the ideal for hiking, and resting :-) The landscape in this region it very beautiful and I'm definitely going back there - but then also spending time visiting the Dão wineries!!!

Ok, back to work I went to Norway, to visit my old lab at the University of Tromsø. It was nice to be back, to meet my old colleagues and friends again. I had meetings with my PhD students, and other collaborators to discuss manuscripts which is almost ready for submission :-)

In between all this travelling, we have prepared more protein samples for a new EPR experiment which will take place in October. We also had meetings with the head of the Raman Spectroscopy group here at the ITQB, Smilja Todorovic, in order to discuss the possibility of doing some experiments with my proteins. Raman spectroscopy seems very complicated to me, and they need very concentrated samples for the analysis (~ 30 mg/ml - fortunately only 2 µl), but it will give us more information about the state and nature of the metal centres of my proteins which is one of the main goals of the project. I think now I’m really benefitting from performing my project a multidisciplinary institute, having the luxury of just going up one floor to find a fully equipped Raman spectroscopy lab and all the expertise you need to get the experiment done and the results analysed. I really look forward to learn more about this technique.

And next week I'll finally start learning the Portuguese language at the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. It will be a busy autumn :-)

Monitoring visit

Yesterday Project Officer Zakaria Benameur from the European Commission came to the ITQB for a monitoring visit. The aim of the visit was to monitor both scientific and administrative aspects of my Marie Curie fellowship. He first spent two hours with the administration at the ITQB, and then one hour with me and the Scientist in Charge of the project Professor Maria Arménia Carrondo. I gave a presentation about the background of my project and an update on the status so far. After the meeting I gave Mr. Benameur a short visit of the research facilities of the Macromolecular Crystallography Unit.

I think it was nice and very useful to have this monitoring visit. I got some new ideas about other funding resources within the European Commission I can apply for in order to continue my research when the money for this project runs out. It was also nice to actually meet the person who I have exchanged several e-mails with after my project was selected for funding within the Marie Curie programme J

With a new picture I found of the ITQB (nice surroundings for research) I wish you a nice weekend!

The ITQB day

Today it is the ITQB day, and we have now attended a gathering in the auditorium, with speeches by the ITQB director and the principal of Universidade Nova de Lisboa and people who where rewarded for their scientific work in 2011. Soon we will go to the “Sardinhada”, were there will be served grilled sardines (typical for Portugal), meat for the cowards (including me) and refreshments J And the party will go on for some time I think.....

Bom fim de semana/Have a nice weekend!

Technical problems and monitoring visit

It has been quiet here for some time now.... We have had some problems with the protein purification due to some technical issues, thus we are a couple of weeks behind schedule :-( This made us postpone the planned EPR experiments, which may only take place in September now. We'll see. However, instead of the EPR we will try to perform Raman spectroscopy - another cool technique which also allows us to study the state of the metal centres in my proteins.

It is also clear that the ITQB will be visited by a project officer from the European Commision on July 12th. The aim of the visit is to monitor both administrative and scientific aspects of my Marie Curie fellowship. It will be an interesting day I think, both for the officer and for us, and we hope he will return to Brussels with positive impressions from his visit :-)

Até logo/see you soon

Back from work in Norway

Then I’m back in Portugal after spending a week in my old lab at the University of Tromsø. It was really nice to be back and meet old colleagues and friends again, and also to be back in the town I have lived in for 14 years (see picture)! The aim of going north was to meet up with my two PhD students who I still supervise on a distance from the ITQB, tidy up in my stuff which is still stored in freezers there, and also bring some material which I need for my project in Portugal. I had also planned to do one experiment, but as always I was a bit too ambitious…

Now I’m facing a couple of weeks with protein purification in order to prepare new samples for the next EPR experiment J

See you soon!

PhD defence and Norways national day

On Friday last week Susana Gonçalves defended her PhD thesis here at the ITQB. Susana and I spent some time in the lab of the Structural Biology Group at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) at the same time in 2005 (I think...), so it was great to be present at her PhD defence (and celebration :-).

After a 20 min. presentation and examination by four (out of six) members of the jury, she recieved the diploma which proves that she is now Dr. Gonçalves! CONGRATULATION!



On May 17th it was "Dia de Noruega", the Norwegian national day! I was invited to a reception at the Norwegian ambassador’s residence, and went there to celebrate the day together with other Norwegians, diplomats from other countries and guests from Portugal. It was very nice, and a good opportunity to meet other Norwegians living in Portugal.

Have a nice weekend!

My first results

During the last few weeks, I have been producing three of the proteins I'm studying during this project. They all have an iron-sulfur cluster and are therefore yellow/brownish at high concentration (see picture). One aim of my project is to analyse wheter this iron-sulfur cluster contributes with electrons in order for the protein to repair damaged DNA. One technique you can use to analyse this is Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR), and yesterday I performed the first analysis of my proteins by EPR. I don't know much about this technique yet, but I'm here to learn more about it as part of my project. From the very preliminar results we got yesterday I'm convinced we will gain new knowlegde about this class of enzymes which in the end will teach us more about their contribution for the maintenance of our genome :-) The experiment was performed in collaboration with Professor Miguel Teixeira at the Metalloproteins and Bioenergetics Unit at the ITQB.

By the way, this week the heat finally arrived, and I think it was about 28C yesterday. Unfortunately I haven't been able to enjoy it as much yet since I'm working, but during the weekend I will go the beach :-)

Have a nice weekend!

My first group seminar

The MX unit has group meetings every Wednesday at 10.00, where members of the unit present recent results or papers within macromolecular crystallography. Today it was my turn and I presented the project I have been working on for some time now, and my plans for the Marie Curie fellowship. 

Here you have a couple of pictures of crystal structures I talked about today - uracil DNA N-glycosylase (UNG) and mismatch specific uracil DNA glycosylase (MUG) from Deinococcus radiodurans (DEIRA). They were the first crystal structures of DNA glycosylases from DEIRA which were published (in 2005 and 2006), and you can read more about them by following the links!