Annual Report of Activities CNC 2008 - Center for Neuroscience and ...

per year) will be proposed by the groups of the Neuroscience and Disease Line. Members of theNeuroscience and Disease area also participated as Faculty members at MIT‐Portugal PhD Programmeinvolving other Portuguese research Units (ITQB/IGC, IST, University of Minho, BIAL).Mitochondria and Cell Death group will be involved in organization and teaching in the “2009 PENSSummer School‐ Metabolic Aspects of Chronic Brain Disorders”, that will be held in Gunzburg, Germany(organizing committee: Patrick Weydt, Germany, Asa Petersen, Sweden, Ana Cristina Rego, Portugal,Maja Bresjanac, Slovenia).An international Symposium on “Crosstalk Between Basic and Clinical Research”, involving CNC groupsand the Neurological Clinic, Coimbra University Hospital, is being proposed for 2010.A patent resulting from the collaboration between different groups at CNC and the University of Minho ‐Silva B., Oliveira PJ, Dias ACP, Malva JO: Neuroprotection by phenolic compounds present in hypericumperforatum extracts. US Provisional PAT‐US 61/020,226.Future PlansThe wealth of expertise in studying glutamatergic synapses, mainly focused on glutamate receptorstrafficking and synaptic stabilization, regulation of their functional properties, either by purines,neuropeptides or phosphorylation, the role of mitochondria dysfunction and changes in interorganellecrosstalk will be further explored, to look at synaptic dysfunction and excitotoxic cell death that have beenobserved in several neurodegenerative diseases, stroke and epilepsy. We plan to expand the competitiveongoing research on the molecular determinants of neurodegeneration, neuroprotection and neurogenesis,from the molecular and cellular level to in vivo animal models of disease with impact on human carestrategies and offer competitive research service facilities to pharmaceutical industry.Future strategicdevelopment of research activity will be based on three main pillars: Neuroprotective strategies; Novelapproaches of brain repair based in gene therapy; The use of stem and progenitor cells for brain repair.Accordingly, we will pursue the study of the molecular and cellular basis of neuroprotection induced bymodulators of synaptic function, including classic neuromodulators, neurotrophins and downstreamantioxidant and mitoprotective mechanisms. New exciting developments of neuroprotection and neuraltissue repair using gene delivery created the basic conditions to develop strong research groups devoted tothe use of viral vectors and gene delivery as tools to stop the progression of brain diseases. Moreover, theuse of stem cells and particularly neural stem/progenitor cells will contribute to develop novel approachesable to promote the replacement of death neurons and oligodendrocytes, with new functional cells, inmodels of brain diseases.The close collaboration with the Neurology and Ophtalmology departments at the University Hospitalwill support the research using human tissues. This integrated approach will require the creation orupdating of research units such as neuroproteomics, electrophysiology, viral vectors and gene therapy,microdyalisis experimental surgery and behaviour studies. To meet the needs of the use of geneticallymodified animals as models of disease, the expansion and re‐organization of the animal facility is apriority16