Rita Fior BiO

I am Developmental Biologist, fascinated by how cells interact with each other, to deliver instructions, to collaborate, to compete or synchronize their actions. During my PhD, under the supervision of Prof. Domingos Henrique, I studied the Notch downstream events that control the balance between neural differentiation and progenitor maintenance and generated an unstable Notch reporter to study Notch signalling in real-time. For my Post-doc I established a collaboration between Leonor Saúde (iMM, PT) and Julian Lewis (FRS, CRUK) and started using zebrafish as a model organism. During this work I found a transcription based negative feed-back loop that allows the coordination between 3 major events during zebrafish segmentation: differentiation, cell movement and stem cell maintenance.

Recently, I became interested in CANCER. This turn in my scientific interest started building up, when I realized that there are several chemotherapy treatments options, but no available test to determine the best therapy for each individual patient. Thus, building on the zebrafish larvae xenograft model, I further developed and optimized the model to test if it could reveal inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity to be used for personalized medicine (Fior et al PNAS 2017). Currently, we are testing the predictiveness of the zAvatars in CRC and breast cancer by comparing the chemotherapy therapeutic response in patients with their matching zAvatars. Results are very promising and we are increasing numbers and expanding our Avatar studies to other cancer types. In close collaboration with the Radiotherapy and the Digestive Unit, we also developed a new protocol to use zAvatars for radiotherapy evaluation (Costa et al, Ebiomedicine 2020). And also for Becizumab screening (Rebelo de Almeida et al, 2020 Communications Biology).

In parallel we are exploring the cellular and molecular interactions that occur during innate tumor rejection/evasion using the zebrafish xenograft model. We have recently found that human tumor cells are able to reconstitute different tumor microenvironments and generate hot or cold TME. In other words we think zebrafish xenografts can be reporters of the TME state (Póvoa et al, Nat.comm 2021)!

TEACHING

During my research career, I have been involved in teaching in several PhD Programs of the Instituto Gulbenkian Ciência and PGCD (Cape Verde) programs as well as several Master programs (Faculty of Sciences, U. Lisbon, Faculty of Medicine, U. Lisbon).

I also designed and lectured 2 full Master courses:

-Developmental Biology at the Faculty of Science and Technology, U. NOVA (2010-2016).

-Cell and Molecular Biology of Cancer in the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon- where development, evolution and clinical perspectives are mixed together in a series of seminars. This Cancer course is now available in a form of Text Book, edited by me and Rita Zilhão, by Springer Publishing Co.

HONORS & AWARDS

2020 BIAL Clinical Medicine Prize, BIAL Foundation - Honorable Mention

2019 Prémio FAZ CIENCIA, AstraZeneca Foundation - Honorable Mention

2018 Crioestaminal Prize – Honorable Mention

2017 Image of the Day: Fish Avatars for Cancer, New Scientist

2012 BioMED Central Research Award 2011-Best Paper

2011 Olympus BioScapes-Honorable Mention

2004 Young Geneticist of the Year-awarded by the British Genetics Society & Promega