Ivo Martins
Researcher
Address:
Ivo Martins
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa
Av. Prof. Egas Moniz, Edf. Egas Moniz
1649-028 Lisboa
PortugalPhone number:
+351217999478
Fax Number:
+351217999477
Url of your web site:
Other research topics:
Currently, my work involves the development of amyloid-based nanosensors for the study of flavivirus structural proteins interactions with peptides and/or lipids, namely in the context of interactions of lipid systems with structural proteins of dengue and other Flavivirus (such as West-Nile Virus). As detailed bellow, this is a natural evolution of my doctoral and postdoctoral work in protein biophysics and bioengineering.
Relating the flavivirus studies, the main aim has been to contribute to basic and applied research on the dengue virus capsid protein and its mechanism of action at the molecular level. Significant progress has been achieved, leading to several publications on the subject as well as to a patent application on a peptide drug lead, the pep14-23 peptide (International Patent Registration Number: WO/2012/159187). Overall, the findings provide methods for diminishing and/or avoiding flavivirus viral particle formation via peptide-based therapeutics.
In what concerns the development of amyloid-based nanosensors, this has been initiated recently with success leading to an article and patent application. These amyloid studies are related to my PhD work, which main aim was to contribute to the understanding of the relation between the in vitro protein aggregation and in vivo biological activity of the amyloid species by studying amyloid-lipid interactions as a possible toxicity mechanism (International Patent Registration Number: WO/2008/028939/A1).
Other methods/technologies:
Dengue. West-Nile Virus. Virology. Protein structure. Protein function. Structural biology. Computational biology. Protein-lipids interaction. Peptide lipids-interaction. Alzheimer's beta-peptide. Amyloid peptides and proteins. Biophysics. Liposomes and lipid vesicles. Protein aggregation. Lipids membranes. Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
Suggestions for potential research cooperations:
I work with dengue and West-Nile virus capsid proteins, from a structural perspective, concerning their interaction with biologically relevant ligands (namely lipid droplets and lipoproteins). I would like to aply within a project complementar to those areas, including in vivo and/or bioinformatics or computational biology data.
Your research topics:
diagnostic
interactions host-pathogen
interactions pathogen-pathogen
pathogenicity
prevention
treatment
Organism studied by your group:
Virus
