Maria Arez, a PhD student at Instituto Superior Técnico and a researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB), is among the five winners of the 4th edition of the Maria de Sousa Award for her research into epigenetics. The award ceremony will take place this afternoon, 9 October, at 5 p.m., in Aula Magna, Rectorate Building of Universidade de Lisboa.

The student is working in the field of induced pluripotent stem cells, which are generated in the laboratory from cells in our body (such as blood or skin cells). ‘These are cells with the ability to transform into any type of cell in our body, which has opened doors to personalised cell therapies and regenerative medicine, overcoming the rejection problems that often occur’, explains Maria Arez.

However, the production of these cells ‘is not yet perfect’ and errors can occur, particularly in areas regulated by parental imprinting, the mechanism that controls the expression of specific genes, ensuring that they are expressed only by the paternal copy or only by the maternal copy, but never by both, as is the case with most genes. ‘Defects in this mechanism lead to developmental disorders and it is therefore essential to ensure that these errors do not occur in the production of these cells. My line of research focuses on understanding these errors, how and when they occur during the production of these cells and how we can avoid or correct them’, she adds.

Maria Arez began by studying the phenomenon in mouse cells and then moved on to human cells. For the future, in addition to do an international internship in France (at the CNRS, Epigenetics and Cell Fate Centre, Université Paris Cité) following this award, she wants to establish her own line of research to continue ‘correcting the errors of parental imprinting that arise during the generation of stem cells’.

The Maria de Sousa Award honours the memory of the physician and researcher Maria de Sousa. It is a partnership between the Bial Foundation and Universidade de Lisboa, and aims to award and support five researchers, aged 35 or under, in research projects in the area of Health Sciences, including an internship at an international centre of excellence.

This year, the award ceremony took place at the BIAL Foundation 30th Anniversary conference, which featured António and Hanna Damásio as speakers.

In 2022, Ana Melo, also a Técnico researcher, was one of the winners of Maria de Sousa Award.