Structure to function studies in UDP-glucose dehydrogenases and nitroreductases

The thesis is divided into two parts corresponding to structural studies on two different proteins. The first part concerns the study of two UDP-glucose dehydrogenases (UGDs) from Sphingomonas elodea ATCC 31461 and Burkholderia cepacia IST 408, both involved in exopolysaccharide production. Their relevance arises because some of these bacterial exopolysaccharides are valuable as established biotechnological products, the former case, whilst others are highly problematic, when used by pathogens in biofilm formation over biological surfaces, as the latter case, namely in the human lungs. The goal of these studies is to increase our knowledge regarding UGDs structural properties, which can potentiate either the design of activity enhancers to respond to the increased demand of useful biofilms, or the design of inhibitors of biofilm production, in order to fight invading pathogens present in several infections. The thesis reports the production and crystallisation of both proteins, the determination of initial phases by single-wavelength anomalous dispersion (SAD) in S. elodea crystals using a seleno-methionine isoform, and phasing of B. cepacia crystals by molecular replacement (MR) using the S. elodea model, as well as the refinement, structural analysis and comparison between the several UGDs structures available during this work.(...)

Spectroscopy studies on conservation issues in modern and contemporary paintings

Dissertation presented to the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of New University of Lisbon in fulfilment of the requirements for the Master’s degree in Conservation and Restoration Specialization in easel painting

Studies on resistance and response to vancomycin in Enterococcus faecalis: a last resort antibiotic

Dissertation presented to obtain a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry by Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Using gold nanoparticles in protein crystallography: studies in crystal growth and derivatization

Dissertation for the Master Degree in Structural and Functional Biochemistry

Studies on BolA and ribonuclease R: two important factors in the control of bacterial gene expression

Dissertation presented to obtain the Ph.D degree in Biology

Context-aware personalization environment for mobile computing

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Controlling gene expression in enterobacteriaceae: studies on sRNAs and strategies for synthetic biology

Dissertation presented to obtain the Master Degree in Molecular, Genetics and Biomedicine

Fungal communities in archives: assessment strategies and impact on paper conservation and human health

The main results presented in this PhD Dissertation have been published in interna-tional journals included in the Science Citation Index (SCI)