Daniel Guimarães de Oliveira is the winner of the Nuno Grande 2022 Doctoral Scholarship (BDNG), an initiative by Professor Nuno Grande’s family, the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences (ICBAS) and the BIAL Foundation.

“Winning this scholarship will allow us to bring research closer to patients.” This is how the winner, a 3rd-year student of the Doctoral Program in Medical Sciences at ICBAS and a specialist in Internal Medicine, Daniel Guimarães de Oliveira, sums up the awarding of this distinction.

The winning project, from the first edition of the BDNG, aims to expand the study in innovative areas of research, such as cellular exhaustion and intestinal dysbiosis, to patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), with the main objective of finding mechanisms to improve the lives of patients.

According to Daniel Guimarães de Oliveira, the importance of this scholarship lies in the possibility it offers of bringing medical research closer to clinical practice. “The great challenge for those who conduct fundamental and translational research is to ensure that the gift of patients who agree to participate and the efforts of the research team translate into tangible results that improve care for those suffering from illness. The path to get there is long, involves significant financial costs and is not guaranteed”. At this stage, the BDNG will allow the student to “consolidate the project and the team, in order to move towards finding answers for our patients”. Henrique Cyrne Carvalho, a member of the Jury, explained that this scholarship embodies Professor Nuno Grande’s vision. “A vision of comprehensive higher education, without defined limits, that would allow us to open horizons and chart new paths. This scholarship represents exactly that: medical practice, in close collaboration with teaching and research, as the only way to achieve collective benefit”, he highlights. The jury also included the deputy director of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP), Francisco Cruz, the deputy director of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC), Henrique Girão, the director of the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Algarve (FMCB-UAlg), Isabel Palmeirim, and the president of the School of Medicine of the University of Minho (UM-UM), Jorge Correia Pinto.

The Nuno Grande Doctoral Scholarship was created on the initiative of Professor Nuno Grande’s family, ICBAS and the BIAL Foundation, to which Nuno Grande was linked for over 20 years, and was launched as part of the celebrations of the University of Porto’s Eminent Figure 2022. With a value of €25,000, it aims to support research work in the areas of Fundamental Sciences, namely those that aim to promote the acquisition of differentiating academic skills for teaching Medicine in doctors who, collaborating in teaching, are or intend to develop their studies within the scope of the Doctoral Program in Medical Sciences taught at ICBAS.

Information source: https://bialfoundation.com/pt/agregador-noticias/posts/bolsa-de-doutoramento-nuno-grande-2022-ja-tem-vencedor/