Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OLISSIPO (OLISSIPO – Fostering Computational Biology Research and Innovation in Lisbon)
Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-03-31
Although Computational Biology in Portugal has significantly progressed in the past two decades, the system remains fragile, which has hampered the full establishment of this research area. It is thus essential to stimulate the progression of this fundamental discipline and ensure competitiveness in the forthcoming projects and innovative actions in Portugal.
The OLISSIPO Consortium was designed to provide outstanding and complementary expertise in Strategic Areas of Computational Biology. Besides the proponent institution, INESC-ID (Lead: Susana Vinga), it involves three leading institutions and Principal Investigators in the area of Computational Biology: Inria (Marie-France Sagot), ETH Zürich (Niko Beerenwinkel), and EMBL (Wolfgang Huber).
More specifically, OLISSIPO will enhance INESC-ID research profile and innovation competence in Computational Biology, provide training to staff and Early Stage Researchers to build critical mass at the interface of computer science and health research and strengthen the collaborative network between the Twinning partners. The OLISSIPO institutions will reinforce their expertise in theoretical modeling, computer science and statistical learning with a direct impact on biology, medicine and health applications. This project will also support regional initiatives under the SMART specialization strategy for Lisbon and Portugal.
These objectives will be reached through short-term staff exchanges and expert visits (exchange of scientific and administrative staff) and the organization of scientific events (summer schools, workshops and international conferences). To leverage the research potential of the team, OLISSIPO also provides and supports training not only in the research topics identified but also in soft skills (e.g. scientific writing and presentation skills), intellectual property issues, and open-source).
The network raised by the OLISSIPO project is now showing some success since the INESC-ID members and Twinning partners have already identified synergies and have a plan to collaborate in the future.
Although the results are not known yet, a funding proposal was submitted at the national level to FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) to further support Computational Biology activities at INESC-ID and the University of Lisbon.
The planned activities of dissemination, communication and outreach will further boost not only the INESC-ID visibility to the wide public but also divulge Computational Biology and its importance in pathology (interpreted as the study of diseases), from personalised healthcare and precision oncology to the analysis of infectious diseases. This will contribute to strengthen the link between Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Health which is aligned with the Lisbon region’s priority “Health research, technologies and services” and the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN), with a direct impact associated with the Goal 3 “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”.