Joana Gaifem awarded with Maria de Sousa Prize for IBD Research

Exciting news!

Joana Gaifem, a post-doctoral researcher in Pinho’s Lab, has recently been awarded with the Maria de Sousa prize. Currently in its 4^th edition, this prize pays homage to the late Maria de Sousa, a pioneer in immunology and education in Portugal, and distinguishes notable young researchers in Portugal working in the health sciences.

Joana’s project, for which the prize was granted, tackles inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and is entitled ‘Feeding immunity: glycans as nutritional players in host-microbiome dynamics in IBD’. IBD encompasses Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, both of which can drastically reduce the quality of life of inflicted individuals. Importantly, current therapies show variable efficacy across patients and there are no preventive strategies to predict disease progression in high-risk individuals.

Therefore, with this work, Joana intends to explore how different glycans in the intestinal mucosa influence the microbiome. By exploring glycan-mediated host-microbe interactions, Joana’s project will seek to detail not only how host glycans promote the growth of specific microbial species, but also if altering the intestinal glycome can reconfigure the microbiome to prevent intestinal inflammation. In addition to the work in Pinho’s lab, Joana will have the opportunity to advance part of this project at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Through this project, Joana will continue her work at the intersection of IBD and glycobiology, having already identified unique glycosignatures of circulating IgGs that predate the onset of Crohn’s disease and trigger intestinal inflammation at pre-clinical stages. Thus, this project represents an important step towards the development of novel therapeutic and preventive strategies which target glycosylation as a key player in intestinal homeostasis.

Congratulations Joana!