The Universidade do Algarve aims to carry out research and education in advanced sciences and reinforce the interaction between the university and regional institutions. With approximately 10000 students, 700 faculty members and a diverse range of undergraduate and graduate programs, it has evolved since its inception to become an international reference in several areas and, in the latest years, in biomedical research. At UAlg, biomedical research is spearheaded by researchers from the CBMR, with the participation of researchers from the CCMAR/CIMAR LA. Together, these centres created a strong research core in biomedical sciences at UALG, namely embryonic development, cell therapies, animal models of disease and systems biology. This biomedical core, together with the new Departamento de Ciências Biomédicas e Medicina was created in recent years to address the need for both new therapeutic strategies and improved interactions between research developments and medicine. Researchers from CBMR and CCMAR/CIMAR LA at UAlg are also part of the UAlg‘s Medical School and of the PhD Programme in Biomedical Sciences, both as professors and as PhD supervisors. These programmes were structured to cross-expose candidates to relevant aspects of each field. Being a higher education institution that awards graduate degrees, UAlg has in place all the necessary infrastructures and human resources for this programme. Moreover, the University has, over the last decade, been allocating increasing resources to I&D activities, including facilities designated for research that cover an extensive area of its main campus. These research facilities are fully equipped to carry out research activities in the biomedical field, encompassing cell imaging, flow cytometry, animal facilities and imaging, molecular biology and gene expression facilities. These infrastructures have greatly contributed to the excellent rating that the IBB-CBME LA has consistently achieved within FCT, as well as an excellent track record in terms of both publications and advanced training of students.
The IBB-CBME researchers have several collaborations with scientists within the field of this proposal as well as with investigators from chemistry, marine biology, physics, and others, both at the national and international level, who have led to joint supervision of undergraduate and graduate students as well as peer-reviewed publications.
The institutions involved in this proposal are very active in both academic research and academic teaching. IBB/CBME-UALG offers Master degrees in both Biomedical Sciences and Medicine, and a PhD program in Biomedical Sciences, with an average annual number of 65 graduate students, 12 of which are students enrolled in the doctoral programme. The latter is structured to achieve high quality biomedical training complete with a set of additional skills, including teaching activities, where the candidates perform the duties of teaching assistants, transversal skills such as scientific communication and also public outreach activities. In addition, the candidates are routinely exposed to high quality national and international research, both by lectures from invited researchers and periods abroad at international labs.