Descripción del proyecto
Portugal impulsa su potencial con la creación de un centro de microscopia crioelectrónica para el descubrimiento de fármacos
La estructura está íntimamente relacionada con la función y comprender la estructura tridimensional de las moléculas biológicas es fundamental en el descubrimiento de fármacos. La microscopia crioelectrónica proporciona información estructural sobre muestras ultracongeladas (enfriadas criogénicamente) incrustadas en hielo no cristalino (vítreo). Hace décadas que existe y, tras años de desarrollo, los avances están impulsando una revolución en la biología estructural. Portugal era uno de los pocos países europeos que carecía de esta tecnología. Sin embargo, la previsión de instalar el primer microscopio crioelectrónico con autocargador que coordina el consorcio CryoEM-PT, del que forma parte la Universidad NOVA de Lisboa, cambiará esta situación. Gracias a CryoEMatNOVA, financiado con fondos europeos, se creará un centro de microscopia crioelectrónica sostenible para la investigación y la formación en NOVA.
Objetivo
Structural biology is essential for atomic-level understanding of structure-function relationships in living systems and increasingly key to providing knowledge structure-based drug discovery. While traditionally the method of choice has been x-ray crystallography, in the past seven years, dramatic improvements of resolution using cryo electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have resulted in cryo-EM named 2015 Nature Method of the Year and the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This in turn has had a major impact on the number of cryo-EM installations in Europe, publicly deposited structures, publications and related knowledge, teaching and dissemination.
Portugal is one of the few European countries without this technology. That is now changing with the inclusion of cryo-EM in the Portuguese Roadmap of Research Infrastructures 2020, resulting in major funding (€2.5M) for the first autoloader cryo electron microscope to be installed in Portugal in 2022, coordinated by the CryoEM-PT consortium in whichNOVA is a node. This presents an excellent opportunity for establishing cryo-EM research and training in Portugal, and specifically at NOVA, which has expertise using x-ray crystallography and NMR, while expertise in cryo-EM is lacking, resulting in unmet needs.
The overall objective of CryoEM@NOVA is to establish a sustainable cryo-EM hub for research and training at NOVA. Under the direction of the ERA Chair holder this objective is clearly achievable as Prof. Luecke has experience in setting up cryo-EM infrastructure leading to high-resolution structures of proteins with medically-relevant bound inhibitors, generating high-impact publications and attracting funding and collaborations.
The operation of advanced electron microscopes and associated vitrification robots coupled with storage- & compute-intensive data analysis requires scientists with in-depth knowledge & training. Such talent will have acquired this expertise elsewhere and will need to be recruited to Portugal.
Ámbito científico
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata science
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesgeologymineralogycrystallography
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsmicroscopyelectron microscopy
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmolecular biologystructural biology
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaRégimen de financiación
HORIZON-CSA - HORIZON Coordination and Support ActionsCoordinador
1099 085 Lisboa
Portugal