Research
Dr. Sandra Pinto has a PhD in chemistry. She is a senior researcher at IST-ID in the Biospectroscopy and Interfaces Research Group (BSIRG-iBB). Sandra does research in Medicinal chemistry, Cell biophysics (with particular focusing on confocal and two-photon microscopy) and microbiology. In the last five years she has been focused on development of innovative biophysical and imaging techniques for the characterization of microbial biofilms and to discovered novel therapies for drug-resistant infectious diseases. In this sense, she has already identified polymeric nanoparticles that are synthetic mimics of AMPs. These nanoparticles were well tolerated by human cells and showed sub-μM broad-spectrum activity against multi-drug resistant bacteria in their planktonic form. This work resulted in a patent (“Cationic core-shell polymers”, Portuguese Patent N. 116802, 01.10.2020).
News
July 1st 2019
Project developed by iBB wins Research Fellowship in the area of cancer treatment
The project OSTEOGLUTIS aims to contribute to a better understanding of bone lesions from myeloma
The 10,000€ fellowship will allow the team to develop new treatment options for multiple myeloma based on regenerative medicine.
​
Despite many advances, Multiple myeloma is a malignant plasma cell disorder that accounts for approximately 10% of all hematologic cancers and it remains an incurable disease and almost all patients will relapse.
​
The winning project called OSTEOGLUTIS aims to contribute to a better understanding of bone lesions from myeloma. It proposes a new methodology for in vitro osteogenic differentiation, without genetic manipulation, of human mesenchymal stem cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. This methodology will be used to carry out research on cross-regulation plasma cells from multiple myeloma and osteoblasts, through osteoblast bone remodeling.
​
The research team is composed of Dr .Vasco Bonifácio (Tema Leader), Dr. Sandra Pinto and Dr. Margarida Diogo, all iBB researchers.
​
The 3rd edition of the Multiple Myeloma Research Fellowship was created by the Portuguese Association Against Leukemia (APCL) and the Portuguese Society of Hematology (SPH), with the support of Amgen Biopharmaceutical. According to Aida Botelho de Sousa, president of SPH, “this fellowship is important to stimulate researchers who work in the area of multiple myeloma”.
​
According to Manuel Abecasis, President of APCL, “the winning project will contribute to a better understanding of the interactions between myeloma cells and the bone marrow stroma, thus opening perspectives for the development of new treatments”.
​
According to Tiago Amieiro, Director at Amgen, “Amgen is committed to improve the lives of patients. The 3rd edition of the Multiple Myeloma Research Fellowship is no exception. This fellowship aims to enhance the knowledge about this disease, diagnosis, treatment, patient monitoring, quality of life and / or cost and burden of disease in Portugal”.
​
This project will be carried out at the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (IBB), a research unit of Instituto Superior Técnico – Universidade de Lisboa.
taken from Community news of IST
Contact
Dr. Sandra Pinto
Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB)
Instituto Superior Técnico
Complexo Interdisciplinar
Instituto Superior Técnico
Av. Rovisco Pais,
1049 001 Lisboa, Portugal
sandrapinto[@]tecnico.ulisboa.pt