This month, the results of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships and ERA Fellowships were announced, with Portugal securing record funding across 38 different projects.
Universidade Nova de Lisboa was at the forefront of Portuguese institutions, securing funding for 13 projects, closely followed by Universidade de Lisboa, which secured funding for 8 projects, 4 of which are taking place at Técnico. From these projects, 2 are coordinated by CERENA’s researchers.
Filippo Bertozzo, currently based in Brussels, will come to Técnico Lisboa to work in Ricardo Araújo’s paleontology laboratory. Filippo’s work will be divided into two phases. In the first phase, Filippo will digitally reconstruct the inner ear of pterosaurs and dinosaurs, and, in the second phase, Filippo will study the inner ear anatomy of modern animals. This will allow the extrapolation of information about the evolution of animal metabolism taking advantage of the studies performed by Ricardo using the thermos motility index (TMI). This project is one of the branches of Ricardo’s ERC.
Rosana Pinto, currently based in Técnico, will use metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to safely store and deliver therapeutic gases such as nitric oxide and carbon monoxide. Although these gases can be toxic in high amounts and are difficult to handle, they can have powerful health benefits, including antibacterial and anticancer effects, when used in the right doses. MOFs will act as tiny containers that help release these gases in a controlled and safe way for medical applications. In this project, Rosana will be working in Ana Clara Marques’ laboratory.
Each of these projects was awarded 200 000€ in this call, which had a success rate of 9.3%. Congratulations Rosana and Fillippo!