GENETAGUS
It is both an academic research group associated with Egas Moniz and a company providing services to academics and biotech corporations worldwide.
It creates value and knowledge through a parallel and regular Research and Development (R&D) activity that helps to lower production costs and results in the publication of scientific papers and intellectual property in the area of genetic editing of cell lines, and concentrates its activity in the area of genetic editing of mammalian cell lines, i.e. primary (or finite) and secondary (or infinite) cell lines, including induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
The company's main objectives are:
- To provide a competitively priced and highly personalised gene editing service, from scientist to scientist.
- To broaden the range of services provided, which have mainly included the generation of knockout and knockin lines using CRISPR/Cas technology, but will eventually also include genetic screens in cell lines and the generation of human iPSCs lines, among others.
The team:
Vasco M. Barreto (VMB) is a Group Leader at CEDOC, where he heads the DNA Breaks lab/gene editing service of CEDOC, currently composed of 4 postdocs, 1 Ph.D. student, and 2 technicians. In March 2022, he became an assistant professor at FCT (UN). He has independently secured 8 external competitive grants and fellowships for his team, amounting to ~1.2 M, and authored a total of 56 publications, including 30 international ones, with 25 peer-reviewed articles (average citation/paper=75 from Google Scholar; average Impact Factor= 10.9) in some of the very top journals in the life sciences (e.g., Nature Commun, Mol Cell, JEM, Nature Immunol, PLoS Pathog, PNAS, Cell), 15 of which as first or corresponding author. His research articles have been highlighted in Nature Immunol, Faculty of 1000 and JEM. He is currently working on a commissioned book on Genetics. VMB graduated in Biology at the Univ. of Lisbon (1994) and did his doctoral studies at the Inst. Pasteur in Paris, obtaining a Ph.D. degree in Immunology from the UPMC (2001). He then moved to The Rockefeller Univ. in New York, first as a Postdoc and then as a Research Associate, where he worked in the molecular mechanisms of antibody formation. He returned to Portugal in 2008 to launch his group at the IGC and address two hallmarks of B cells: 1) the interplay between the mechanisms that promote genetic diversity in somatic cells and DNA repair; 2) the epigenetics of mono-allelic expression. He was awarded a Ciencia 2008 contract to initiate his independent career at the IGC and then an Associate Researcher position (IF 2015), after which he moved to CEDOC, where he developed research work supported by 3 FCT grants. This has allowed him to make key contributions to the understanding of both the regulation of Activation-Induced Deaminase (AID), the editor of immunoglobulin genes, and the process of V(D)J recombination. VMB published as senior author, supervised 6 postdocs, 4 PhD students (3 graduated) and 4 MSc students (4 graduated). He reviewed for the FCT and major journals (eg Cell, J Exp Med, Nat Methods, Infect Genet and Evol, Nucleic Acids Res), was external examiner of 7 national and international theses, delivered invited talks at national meetings/institutions as well as abroad (Spain, Sweden, Israel) and (co-)organized modules of 4 international PhD programs as well as 2 national and 1 international scientific meetings. VMB collaborate(d) with world experts in his field (A Gimelbrant, Harvard Medical School, USA; A Ramiro, CNIC, Spain), served in 5 thesis committees and was appointed to the Selection Committee of the International Plants for Life PhD Program (2016) and the Editorial Board of SpringerPlus (2015).
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xvgADskAAAAJ&hl=pt-PT
Zoé Enderlin Vaz da Silva is currently a Research Assistant at Genetagus. Previously, she was a PostDoc in the Microbial Development lab at Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica e Biologica, Lisbon with a project focused on identifying mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in C. difficile. She concluded her PhD from the Program in Integrative Biomedicine at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), with a fellowship from the FCT, in 2018 with the thesis entitled "Influenza A virus modulates Regulators of Complement Activation" (Santos et al. 2021). Her undergraduate studies were done at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. There she concluded a BSc in Biology, and MSc in Biomedicine, immunology and cancer. Her MSc thesis focused on the role of macrophages in wound healing (Vaz da Silva et al. 2014). She taught the practical courses for the Mestrado de Microbiologia Médica at ITQB from 2019 to 2021, and co-supervised a Master Student. She was also involved in the ITQB NOVA COVID19 Volunteer Working Group. Additionally, she was accepted at the StartUp Research Program 2021 from ITQB and NOVA-SBE and awarded a fellowship from the Oeiras Municipality. In summary, Zoé E. Vaz da Silva is a highly motivated scientist, looking for opportunities to develop her research and apply the newly formed knowledge to contribute to society.
Completed the Integrated Master in Biological and Chemical Engineering, and the Degree in Biotechnology from the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal - Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro in 2019/01/24 and 2016/12/19, respectively. Worked as Technical Assistant at Tudor - Exide Technologies from 03/11/2019 to 03/10/2020 and as Assistant (Superior Health Technician - Laboratory) at Universidade Nova de Lisboa Center for the Study of Chronic Diseases from 08/24/2020 - 2021/12/31. Currently work as a Senior Technician at Egas Moniz - Higher Education Cooperative CRL.
Completed the degree in Nutrition Sciences at the Universidade Atlântica in December 2013. I completed the master's degree in Oncobiology at the IMM in May 2020. As complementary courses to the training, I completed the course on handling laboratory animals, completed in September 2019 at the IMM and Gene expression manipulation and analysis at Universidade Lusófona in June 2021. As professional experience: INIAV - 1 year and 2 months with identification and genotyping of transgenic foods; ISA – 1 year and 9 months with nutraceuticals and colon-rectal cancer therapy; IMM – 7 months with oncological therapy with in vivo assay (zebrafish); CEDOC – 1 year and 5 months at COVID Task as a diagnostic, logistics and laboratory management technician; CEDOC/Egas Moniz – GENETAGUS as research assistant in CRISPR.
Chaves-Ferreira M is an Immunologist who started his research path during his master thesis on peripheral differentiation and activation of γδ T-cells (Bruno Silva-Santos Lab iMM, Lisboa - DeBarros et al., Eur J Immunol, 2011; Ribot et al., J Immunol 2010). Following, his doctoral studies were on cell cycle and the role of cyclin D1 in haematopoiesis (Benedita Rocha Lab Necker, Paris - Chaves-Ferreira et al., Biol Direct, 2016).
As a Post-doc, Chaves-Ferreira bridged Immunology with Chemistry studying the effect of carbon monoxide releasing molecules (CORM) on cancer (GBernardes Lab iMM, Lisboa – Seixas and Chaves-Ferreira et al., Chemistry, 2015; Albuquerque et al., Chem Commun, 2015; Chaves-Ferreira et al., Angew Chem Int Ed Engl, 2015). Then Parasitology, glycosylation on T. brucei (LFigueiredo Lab iMM, Lisboa – Bevan et al European J. Org. Chem, 2018). And then Autophagy on the lab of Seabra M. lab. CEDOC, Lisboa).
Currently, Chaves-Ferreira has translated all of his fundamental biology background into applied biotechnology developing CRISPR genetic engineering research on Barreto V. Gentagus Company now located at Egas Moniz cooperativa de ensino superior, Caparica, Portugal (VBarreto Lab CEDOC, Lisboa – Vicente et al. Front. Cell Dev. Biol, 2021).
· Main topics of interest
CRISPR, Gene editing, off-targets, Immunology, Cell Cycle, Apoptosis, Haematopoiesis, Hypoxia, Retinal Degeneration, Lysosomal Dysfunction, Cell Death, Autophagy, Homeostasis, CO-releasing molecules, Tumour Biology, Glycobiology, Vaccines, Chemical Biology, Biotechnology, Infection, Tropism, Parasitology, Molecular Biology
Nadiya Kubasova has a Master in Biotechnology from the University of Lisbon (Instituto Superior Técnico). She is concluding PhD from NOVA Medical School of NOVA University, under the supervision of Dr. Vasco Barreto, with a scholarship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. During her PhD she was interested in random monoallelic autosomal expression of lymphocytes. From this research resulted a paper publication in an international scientific journal. She joined the research group and the company Genetagus in 2022.
Degree in Microbiology and Genetics from the University of Lisbon and a PhD in life Sciences from the University of Cambridge. During my PhD I studied Virology namely Herpes Simplex Virus type I viral gene expression and its impact on latency establishment in vivo. For my first Post-Doc I continued in Cambridge and developed a system able to study HSV-1 latency at the single cell level. In 2013 I returned to Portugal to the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência to study the interaction between an in vitro evolved bacteria and member of the innate immune defense system, the macrophage. In 2017 I joined the laboratory of Dr. Vasco Barreto where I started to study the putative anti-viral role of AID. In 2019 we started the CRISPR@CEDOC service which is now Genetagus Ltd.