In a statement, the foundation, based in Lisbon, explains that the four projects - two in Angola and one in each of the other countries, were selected by an international jury, taking into account criteria such as relevance, originality and quality of the proposal presented and the foreseeable impact on the development of the candidate's and the institution's personal abilities.
The projects were the winners of the Envolve Science PALOP program, an initiative of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation which aimed to support the development of scientific careers in health sciences by young PALOP researchers, in the consolidation of their scientific careers in their countries of origin, strengthening systems scientific, adds the organization.
According to the Gulbenkian website, the Envolve Science PALOP program takes place in two stages: in the first stage, the selected researchers attend eight-month internships in host institutions in Portugal; in the second, they develop a research project in one of the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP).
During the internships of the first phase, researchers present their proposal for a Health Research Project, which is evaluated by an international jury and the best proposals receive support for their development in a PALOP institution, over a period of three years.
In Cape Verde, researcher Pamela Borges will develop a project initiated at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology in Porto, which will be carried out at the Dr. Agostinho Neto Central Hospital of Praia, for the clinical, phenotypic and genetic characterization of breast cancer in Cape Verdean women. Verdians, in the sense of helping doctors to find the most efficient therapy.
Researcher Cláudia Fançony, who trained at the Institute of Research in Life and Health Sciences, at Universidade Minho, is going to develop a project at the National Institute of Health Research/Health Research Center of Angola that will explore the opposing forces that two drugs exert on a single target of the malaria parasite.
Also in Angola, researcher Cruz Sebastião, who was at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, will explore the patterns of transmission and spread of HIV, as well as understanding the emergence of resistance mutations, the impact on HIV schemes. antiretroviral treatment and the cost related to the treatment of patients with resistance to antiretrovirals in the country.
The other winning project will be implemented in the Bandim Health Project, in Guinea-Bissau, and is led by Viriato M'bana, who did an internship at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular. The researcher wants to understand how malaria leads to cancer, namely Burkitt's lymphoma, a common pediatric cancer in malaria-endemic areas.
