Last lesson of Professor Hermínia de Lencastre

Oeiras, 11.12.2017

Today we will celebrate the scientifica carrer of Hermínia de Lencastre, Full Professor at ITQB NOVA and Head of Laboratory Microbiology of Human Pathogens Unit ITQB NOVA, also Senior Research Associate, The Rockefeller University, NY, USA, with the cerimony of her jubilation lesson.

Hermínia de Lencastre will be presented by her formed students, Adriano Henriques and Raquel Sá-Leão, before her lesson on "Antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: genes, phenotypes and clones".

Hermínia de Lencastre has devoted her research on microbial genetics, focusing on biochemistry and molecular biology of Gram-Positive bacteria and phages, including mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and spread of resistance genes and clones. She has published 8 book chapters, 266 papers in international scientific Journals with referees and 12 papers in national periodicals with referees/not indexed in PubMED.

She has been Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator of more than 50 Projects funded either by National (JNICT, FCT, FCG) or International Grant Agencies (EU, NATO, NIH), and has supervised and/or Co-Supervised more than 18 Postdoctoral fellows, 38 PhD students, 10 Master Degree students and 150 Undergraduate- and Research students.

Hermínia de Lencastre is member of the American Society for Microbiology, Society of General Microbiology, European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Portuguese Society for Microbiology and Portuguese Society for Biochemistry.

In 2011, Hermínia de Lencastre was the first recipient of Professor Nicolau van Uden Prize by The Portuguese Society for Microbiology “for her lifetime contributions in the field of Microbiology”.

Hermínia de Lencastre full cv

Cerimony photo album on facebook

Highlights of Hermínia de Lencastre research

• ITQB Researcher leads international publication ranking
• How bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics - Work involving ITQB researchers published in PNAS, 2007

• Antibiotic Awareness Day - ITQB's role in studying antibiotic resistance, 2009

• Best oral communication on pediatric infectious diseases, 2009

• Putting bacteria on the map - Resistant Staphylococcus aureus concentrate in hospitals, 2010

• Tracking the life story of an MRSA clone - High-throughput genomics for molecular epidemiology published in Science, 2010

• High prevalence of MRSA in Portuguese buses - Researchers highlight the need for infection control measures, 2011

• Career award to Hermínia de Lencastre - Lifetime research contribution recognized by Portuguese Society for Microbiology, 2011

• It takes three for antibiotic resistance - Additional gene suggests new model for regulating methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus, 2012

  Vaccination: paying it forward - Following 15-year evolution of pneumococci, vaccine and antibiotic use in Portuguese children, 2016

• The emergence of antibiotic resistance - ITQB NOVA researchers have shown how antibiotic resistance emerged from an harmless gene in bacteria, 2017