Rita Sousa E Silva Email and Phone Number

As a Researcher Assistant at Cell Reprogramming and Developmental Hematopoiesis group at CNC (particularly in the UC-Biotech center), my job is focused on cell reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy.

As a Visiting Researcher at the Phenotypic Evolution group at i3S, my job was continuing the study of spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) developed under my master thesis project, which identifies a subset of proteins that were considered potential players in SCA3. Therefore, in this role I was responsible for gathering information, in literature, about these proteins subset, taking into consideration the human protein role and observation considering SCA3 models (such as Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Mus musculus, and Rattus norvegicus). Next, a selection of the most relevant ones was accomplished and a project was written to fully detailed them and confirm the previous observations using in vitro and in vivo methods. Furthermore, another job that I have in this position is to analyse different structural bioinformatics tools, special the ones related to 3D protein structure predictions: I-TASSER vs AlphaFold. I-TASSER is an established accurate method for protein predictions, special the polyQ proteins (such as ataxin-3, the protein responsible for SCA3 disorder), but AlphaFold emerge as a potential best protein prediction tool. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Thus, I performed protein interaction predictions involving 3D protein structures exclusively obtained from AlphaFold. In the end, a comparison with my master thesis results was done to access the best 3D protein prediction to study SCA3. Also, data analysis and preparation, regarding protein-protein interactions predictions, for a manuscript submission were done by me, and the manuscript is now under revision.

As a Research trainee / Master's degree student at the Phenotypic Evolution group at i3S, I studied the spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3), special the protein-protein interactions of ataxin-3 protein (which endorse, when expanded for the SCA3 pathology) in human and in Drosophila melanogaster (a commonly used model to study this disorder). Thus, I used structural bioinformatic tools to perform in-silico predictions for wild-type and expanded ataxin-3 proteins with the human proteins belonging to the ataxin-3 network and their fly orthologs. Further analysis, using Pymol, identify how a polyQ tract expansion influences the protein interactions. Moreover, ataxin-3 protein family redundancy was accessed, once exist four members in this family. So, gene expression patterns in the tissues associated with SCA3 phenotype, and protein and sequence alignments for these proteins were done. Additionally, during a part of this period I was responsible for team management, where my duties were: to distribute the work for three people (me included) taking into consideration their availability and the timeline for the work conclusion; gather the results and analysed them; help the other team members when necessary.

My bachelor's degree project, developed in the Cardiovascular Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, was englobed in a larger project that aimed to test microRNA-146a (miR-146a) as a possible therapy for Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and right ventricular (RV) failure. Therefore, my duties focus on testing the levels of miR-146a, using reverse transcription and PCR amplification (qRT-PCR), in tissues provide from two mice models: the pulmonary artery banding model, and in monocrotaline model. Moreover, alongside my bachelor's degree project, I helped in another project by assisting in the in vivo rat experiences, such as tests of insulin and glucose resistance, echocardiography, metabolic cages, invasive hemodynamic evaluation, VO2max and subcutaneous administration of drugs to rats.