Occupational Ergonomics and Safety, Part 1

[Excerpt] It seems that significant progress has been made in last years in what concerns the scientific knowledge about work and its impact on workers’ wellbeing and health, which includes but it is not limited to occupational ergonomics and safety. Even considering that this domain is very transversal and comprehensive, as it may include researchers from multidisciplinary teams, research in this domain has clearly increased and we have now a larger number of scientific events, a higher number of researchers publishing their works, and a high emergence rate of research groups at universities and other research institutions, which was also followed by an increasing concern about these issues by governments and other regulators. Even though it is strikingly difficult to demonstrate it in an unequivocal way, this appears to have had a clear effect on companies and on their ability to implement plans and measures to prevent and control occupational risk factors. But despite these advances, occupational risk prevention is still a domain for which solutions are neither complete nor permanent, since the evolution of work systems gives rise to new challenges.

Pharmaceutical regulation and pseudo - generics

Dissertação de mestrado em Economia Industrial e da Empresa

Perplexidades e incertezas da regulação dos media na Europa

A regulação dos media tem ganho relevo nas agendas nacionais e internacionais mas nem sempre a utilização corrente do conceito é consistente, correndo o risco de significar tudo e nada em simultâneo. Independentemente do intenso e profícuo debate concetual que o tema suscita na comunidade académica, julgamos pertinente o estudo das estruturas de regulação mediática que operam no terreno da União Europeia. Este trabalho reflete sobre as entidades de regulação mediática que atuam na defesa do interesse público, ainda que existam as mais diversas modalidades de enunciação e de defesa desse interesse pelos vários estados, e decorre de um esforço de investigação coletivo, enquadrado no projeto “Regulação dos Media em Portugal: O Caso da ERC”, que agregou elementos sobre os organismos reguladores dos media na Europa.

Looking for mechanisms regulating lung growth in CDH: rat and human studies

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Saúde

Neuroendocrine factors regulate retinoic acid receptors in normal and hypoplastic lung development

Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is characterised by a spectrum of lung hypoplasia and consequent pulmonary hypertension, leading to high morbidity and mortality rates. Moreover, CDH has been associated with an increase in the levels of pulmonary neuroendocrine factors, such as bombesin and ghrelin, and a decrease in the action of retinoic acid (RA). The present study aimed to elucidate the interaction between neuroendocrine factors and RA. In vitro analyses were performed on Sprague-Dawley rat embryos. Normal lung explants were treated with bombesin, ghrelin, a bombesin antagonist, a ghrelin antagonist, dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), RA dissolved in DMSO, bombesin plus RA and ghrelin plus RA. Hypoplastic lung explants (nitrofen model) were cultured with bombesin, ghrelin, bombesin antagonist or ghrelin antagonist. The lung explants were analysed morphometrically, and retinoic acid receptor (RAR) α, β and γ expression levels were assessed via Western blotting. Immunohistochemistry analysis of RAR was performed in normal and hypoplastic lungs 17.5 days post-conception (dpc). Compared with the controls, hypoplastic lungs exhibited significantly higher RARα/γ expression levels. Furthermore considering hypoplastic lungs, bombesin and ghrelin antagonists decreased RARα/γ expression. Normal lung explants (13.5 dpc) treated with RA, bombesin plus RA, ghrelin plus RA, bombesin or ghrelin exhibited increased lung growth. Moreover, bombesin and ghrelin increased RARα/γ expression levels, whereas the bombesin and ghrelin antagonists decreased RARα/γ expression. This study demonstrates for the first time that neuroendocrine factors function as lung growth regulators, sensitising the lung to the action of RA through up-regulation of RARα and RARγ.

Evolution of the gene regulatory network controlling flower dorsoventral asymmetry

Tese de Doutoramento em Biologia de Plantas.

Lipids under stress - a lipidomic approach for the study of mood disorders

The emerging field of lipidomics has identified lipids as key players in disease physiology. Their physicochemical diversity allows precise control of cell structure and signaling events through modulation of membrane prop- erties and trafficking of proteins. As such, lipids are important regulators of brain function and have been implicated in neurodegenerative and mood disorders. Importantly, environmental chronic stress has been associated with anxiety and depression and its exposure in rodents has been extensively used as a model to study these diseases. With the accessibility to modern mass- spectrometry lipidomic platforms, it is now possible to snapshot the extensively interconnected lipid network. Here, we review the fundamentals of lipid biology and outline a framework for the interpretation of lipidomic studies as a new approach to study brain pathophysiology. Thus, lipid profiling provides an exciting avenue for the identification of disease signatures with important implications for diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders.

Reconstruction of the regulatory network for Bacillus subtilis and reconciliation with gene expression data

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb. 2016.00275

Study of the retinoic acid regulated genes in the rodent hypothalamus controlling growth and appetite and the potential for the epigenetic control

Dissertação de mestrado em Bioquímica (área de especialização em Biomedicina)

The role of macroH2A1 in prostate carcinogenesis

Dissertação de mestrado em Genética Molecular