Biomedical facilities

• Biobank

GHTM/IHMT NOVA has a biobank – Biotropical Resources (BIOTROP) – an infrastructure designed to provide high-quality biological resources to the scientific community, in order to support research on health sciences, particularly on tropical medicine and infectious diseases.

BIOTROP is prepared to receive, preserve, and distribute biological samples according to biobank guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures in strict compliance with ethical standards and the Nagoya protocol. In 2019, data management and confidentiality good practices were recognized through the Data Privacy Impact Assessment (DPIA) evaluation performed by NOVA Data Protection Officer (DPO). The biobank is part of the Portuguese Roadmap of Research Infrastructures, as member of two networks – Portuguese microBiological Resources Center Network (Pt-mBRCN, www.mbrcn.pt) and National Biobanks Infrastructure (Biobanco.pt, www.biobanco.pt).

See here the available collections: http://biotropical.ihmt.unl.pt/ and https://novainnovation.unl.pt/biotrop-biotropical-resources-biobank/

Different services can be provided, please contact: biotropical.resources@ihmt.unl.pt

For more information on the Biobank

• VIASEF

  

GHTM/IHMT NOVA has also a VIASEF, which is a high-security infrastructure ACL3 (Class III Containment Laboratory for Arthropods) that offers the academic, scientific, and business communities the possibility of carrying out in vivo studies with arthropod vectors of disease-causing agents.

This laboratory facility also complies with the norms of the 3rd level of microbiological containment, having safe conditions to develop projects with pathogens, from biological risk 1 to risk 3, such as multiresistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains or viruses such as Chikungunya, Dengue, Zika, Coronaviridae.

For more information on VIASEF and the services available please visit: http://viasef.ihmt.unl.pt/

• Insectary

Prices on request, through the following contacts: 

Henrique Silveira – hsilveira@ihmt.unl.pt (Insectary Manager)

Ana Catarina Alves – ACAlves@ihmt.unl.pt (Insectary Coordinator)

•    Accredited Animal house/Vivarium

IHMT also has a Vivarium, available in the context of collaborations/partnerships with researchers from other institutions, such as the pharmaceutical industry and research laboratories from different areas of research.

The services provided range from the creation and maintenance of rodents to experimental procedures, such as rodent colonies management (including genetically modified animals), antibody production, education and training in laboratory animal science in partnership with other institutions, including the Portuguese Society of Laboratory Animal Sciences (SPCAL).

For more information on the Vivarium

Data management Resources

• BIOHUB

The GHTM/IHMT NOVA Bioinformatics Infrastructure – BIOHUB – centralizes the genomic sequencing (MinION sequencing platform) and bioinformatics (Linux server) capacities of GHTM. This infrastructure supports the analysis of whole genome sequencing data produced by the existing MinION sequencing platform and manages the existing high computational capacity of GHTM, providing guidelines and supervision to users, equipment maintenance and training.

BIOHUB has been essential in improving bioinformatics skills and responding to the intense complexity/data volume generated by recent technological advances.

Since 2017, the infrastructure has supported 17 users of the Linux server and 14 users of the MinION sequencer in projects involving the characterization of viral genomes associated with arthropods (e.g., ZIKAlliance – https://zikalliance.tghn.org/), in fish and wastewater, including analysis of their spatiotemporal distribution, as well as the characterization of arthropod vectors and antimicrobial resistance studies (e.g., BIOSAFE – http://biosafe.ihmt.unl.pt/; INTEGRATE – https://www.euresist.org/integrate).

• Epidemiological cohort 2023

This cohort with a cross-sequential design and data collected between 2019 and 2023 aims to analyse the socioeconomic and health profile of around 1,200 immigrant and native children living in 5 Portuguese municipalities: Alcochete, Amadora, Barreiro, Moita and Montijo; more than 50% of the children are immigrants, mainly from Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola and Guinea-Bissau. The main results suggest that, before the pandemic, there were health inequalities with an unfavorable pattern for immigrant children except in the breastfeeding profile. During the pandemic period, pre-existing socio-economic inequalities were exacerbated and in lockdowns it was mainly immigrant children who had to go to school to have a meal. During the pandemic, the percentage of immigrant children tested for COVID-19 was lower than that of native-born children; however, the positivity rate was higher in native-born children, suggesting a possible effect of the so-called ‘healthy immigrant child paradox’.

Main results for 2023 are published here:

Martins, M. D. R., Muggli, Z., Amado, R., Silva, A. C. D., Vaz, D., & Fronteira, I. (2023). Percurso de saúde da criança imigrante: um estudo de coorte para o concelho da Amadora. (Coleção Estudos; No. 74). Observatório das Migrações. https://www.om.acm.gov.pt/documents/58428/177157/Estudo+OM+74.pdf/6578f2c3-4cc6-4396-8c7d-e02ebf913d66

Muggli, Z., Mertens, T. E., Amado, R., Vaz, D., Loureiro, H., & Martins, M. R. O. (2023). Patterns of healthcare use among children with immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds in 2019 and 2020: evidence from the CRIAS cohort study in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, Portugal. BMC Public Health, 23(1), 2531. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-17402-z

Alves, I. B., Panunzi, S., Silva, A. C., Loesch, R. B., Pereira, S. C., & Martins, M. R. O. (2024). Have immigrant children been left behind in COVID-19 testing rates?–A quantitative study in the Lisbon metropolitan area between march 2020 and may 2023. Frontiers in Public Health, 12, 1286829. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1286829/full

Policymaking Support

• WHO Collaborating Center (WHOCC)

Serves as a hub of specialized knowledge to develop policies and planning for human resources for health, notably but not exclusively in Portugal, Europe and Portuguese speaking African countries in line with the Global Strategy on Human Resources for health (Workforce 2030).

Evidence: Edition of Special Issue (May 2024): The workforce crisis in healthcare: moving the debate to bridge evidence and policy in the International Journal of Health Planning and Management. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10991751/2024/39/3

Ongoing project: Factors of Professional Satisfaction and Retention in Medicine and Nursing in Portugal: A Nationwide Study (commissioned by the Government of Portugal) Press release: https://www.planapp.gov.pt/estudo-sobre-fatores-satisfacao-profissionais-saude/

• Consultancy

IHMT and GHTM develop consultancy services in the areas of epidemiology, health systems, bio statistics, health programs, evaluation, health economics and human resources for health, among others.

For more information on our consultancy services, please contact us.