What do a French, a Spanish, a Brazilian and an Algerian researcher have in common? In the case of Adeline Boileau, Antonio Salgado Somoza, Clarissa P. C. Gomes and Torkia Lalem, it’s that they are all early-career researchers who came to Luxembourg to join forces in the Cardiovascular Research Unit (CVRU) at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), which aims to identify new personalised strategies to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease.
Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Despite advances in technology, a lack of diagnostic tools and effective treatments remains. As part of their work in the CVRU, PhD candidates Adeline and Torkia, as well as Postdocs Antonio and Clarissa, aim to understand the role of RNA molecules – particularly non-coding RNAs – in some cardiovascular diseases, including heart attack, heart failure, cardiac arrest and thoracic aortic aneurysm.
The team explains that these molecules can be used to diagnose disease and predict what might happen to patients, and in doing so helping doctors to tailor treatment to the patient, decreasing burden and optimising resources. The team’s goal is to develop biomarkers and to translate research products into clinical applications.
“Working with long non-coding RNAs makes one realise how little we know about how our body works”, Antonio says about their research, adding: “Indeed, we are contributing to break the central dogma about RNA being only a messenger molecule to place it as a central player of the regulation inside cells and as a vehicle of communication among different cell types throughout the body”.
In addition to their research responsibilities, the CVRU also runs the CardiolincTM network – an international network which aims to advance the understanding of the role long non-coding RNAs play in cardiovascular disease through serving as a platform to provide opportunities for scientific collaboration. Postdoc Clarissa coordinates this international network, which gathers more than 60 research groups and industries worldwide – she explains that:
“It’s been both challenging and very exciting. I get to know people who wrote some of my favourite papers that I never thought I would meet and, most importantly, I’m able to facilitate and initiate collaborations to advance research.”
“Luxembourg encourages young researchers and welcomes any will for innovation and creativity”
Over 80% of scientists in Luxembourg are non-Luxembourgers. This is also the case for Adeline, Antonio, Clarissa and Torkia, who all came to Luxembourg to take on research into cardiovascular disease – Torkia Lalem points out that there are no less than 9 different nationalities in the CVRU for a staff of 15 people – a true international mix.
“Why Luxembourg?”, we asked the four early-career scientists:
“I came to Luxembourg due to an opportunity to achieve more than one of my goals as a scientist: do translational research (develop a kit with direct impact to patients) and communicate science”, Clarissa P. C. Gomes says, adding: “I felt Luxembourg was attractive to work and live because of its encouraging research policies and international culture, an opinion that has been confirmed since I arrived.”
“I wanted to work in the cardiovascular field and Luxembourg offered this great opportunity”, says Adeline, who came to Luxembourg via the FNR AFR programme, which also provides PhD grants to non-Luxembourgers providing they carry out their PhD project in the Grand Duchy.
Even though Luxembourg’s research environment is young, it made an instant impression on the early-career scientists in the CVRU: “I was impressed by how such a small country could have such high impact research”, Antonio says, pointing out that the country’s location is an advantage in itself: “Its location in the heart of Europe is an asset and the need for researchers to develop international collaborations is attractive for young researchers who aim to increase their networks. The great facilities and grant schemes that support research and allow for career development are the icing on the cake.”
“Luxembourg encourages young researchers and welcomes any will for innovation and creativity”, adds Torkia, who is in the 2nd year of her PhD, making her – researcher-wise— the youngest of the four CVRU researchers. Despite having only just embarked on her researcher journey, Torkia already appreciates the importance of promoting research to youngsters – both she and Adeline have already taken part in the FNR activity Chercheurs à l’école.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the team members, why they became scientists, find out about their work in the CVRU and what they hope to achieve in their careers:
Adeline Boileau, 3rd year PhD
Nationality: French
Research funded by: FNR AFR grant
Why did you become a researcher?
“I was born with a heart defect and have always been interested in the cardiovascular field, wishing to work in this area to understand the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases and contribute with better diagnostics and treatment. Something unique I bring to my research is that, as a patient, I have a clear idea of the patient’s life quality and needs.”
What do you do in the CVRU?
“My work is to explore how microRNAs (small non-coding RNAs) are able to modulate their target gene expression and the link with thoracic aortic aneurysm, a located dilatation of the weakened aortic wall.
I also work on the search for biomarkers in other cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction and heart failure.”
What does a typical day for you look like?
“Developing a PhD is everything but a routine job. It involves different tasks, including designing and conducting experiments, analysing results, reading and writing scientific papers or grant applications and presenting results. It’s great to work in a friendly environment, where interactions with my colleagues and my supervisor allow for enriching exchanges and knowledge transfer.”
What would you like to achieve during your career as a researcher?
“My main aim as researcher is to participate in a discovery that will really improve patients’ quality of life, or even save lives. I would also like to be involved in the understanding of biological mechanisms that are still misunderstood or to help elucidate the causes of rare diseases.”
Antonio Salgado Somoza, Postdoc
Nationality: Spanish
Research funded by: FNR CORE grant
Why did you become a researcher?
“I believe it was because of my extremely curious nature that, combined with an affinity for problem solving, makes the perfect cocktail. So I decided to study Biology and specialized in Molecular Medicine, particularly translational cardiology. I moved to Maastricht to learn more about microRNAs and came to Luxembourg because of an opportunity to combine both areas of expertise.”
What do you do in the CVRU?
“My research is mainly determining if microRNAs can be used to predict patient outcome after cardiac arrest. We also obtained interesting results with long circular RNAs as predictors of a harmful remodelling of the heart after myocardial infarction. We hope that understanding RNA fluctuations in the blood will aid clinicians personalize treatment to patients.”
What does a typical day for you look like?
“As a postdoc, I work less in the lab and more at the computer, researching information, writing, analysing results and doing management tasks. Our group is lucky to have great technicians, who conduct most of the experiments. But to keep them busy, it takes much effort and planning. I’m continuously discussing with colleagues about experimental design or helping the young fellows.”
What would you like to achieve during your career as a researcher?
“I think the most important thing a researcher can ask for is that his/her research becomes somehow meaningful for society. That is what I love about translational research: these kinds of projects allow you to see the application of your discoveries in a relatively short term.”
Clarissa Pedrosa da C. Gomes, Postdoc
Nationality: Brazilian
Research funded by: Eurostars E! 9686 MIPROG project
Why did you become a researcher?
“I have always been curious and eager to learn about new things. Despite studying filmmaking for a while, I couldn’t take my mind off the latest scientific breakthroughs, especially molecular biology. So I decided the best way to satiate my curiosity was to become a researcher. It’s a diverse and exciting field, full of novelty and interesting people.”
What do you do in the CVRU?
“My research involves developing a test based on microRNAs to assess the risk of patients —who suffered a heart attack— to develop life threatening heart failure. I also coordinate the CardiolincTM network and disseminate the group’s activities by writing science communication texts and helping organize events, such as the ‘World Heart Day’.”
What does a typical day for you look like?
“My days generally consist in a lot of reading, researching various information, writing (scientific papers, grant applications, dissemination texts…), coordinating CardiolincTM and analysing results. I also do experiments, but usually count on the help of our group technicians. I love this diversity of tasks because it allows me to experience all dimensions of research.”
What would you like to achieve during your career as a researcher?
“I wish to contribute to advance my research field and improve human health. Another goal is to inspire young people to study science by breaking down academic and cultural barriers. I also think it’s paramount to educate the general public about how science works and to translate applied research into terms that are accessible to everyone.”
Torkia Lalem, 2nd year PhD
Nationality: Algerian
Research funded jointly by: Luxembourg Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Luxembourg Society for Research on Cardiovascular Diseases
Why did you become a researcher?
“I always wanted to become a researcher due to the originality of the work, the fact that I make discoveries (even small ones) and the feeling that I can contribute to improve patient’s life and well-being. I also like to participate in international congresses and science dissemination.”
What do you do in the CVRU?
“I study the role of a long non-coding RNA in the development of heart failure in order to validate it as a new therapeutic target against this disease and as a biomarker to predict its development.”
What does a typical day for you look like?
“My typical day is shared between the bench, performing experiments, and my desk, reading papers, writing publications and analysing my experiment results. My day can also include meetings with my team to discuss any issue that may come up. In addition, I am supervising the work of a master student. No room for boredom!!!”
What would you like to achieve during your career as a researcher?
“I would like to continue searching for new biomarkers to predict the development of cardiovascular disease. I would also like to concretize the new discoveries and translate them into commonly used tools by commercializing tests to detect disease.”
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Published 18 May 2017
About Spotlight on Young Researchers
Spotlight on Young Researchers is an FNR initiative to highlight early career researchers across the world who have a connection to Luxembourg. This article is the 11th in a series of around 25 articles, which will be published on a weekly basis. You can see more articles below as and when they are published.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Maxime Brami
Archaeologist and trained anthropologist Maxime Brami works on uncovering the origins and spread of agriculture, and has just landed a sought-after Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship. We speak to the Luxembourg national about what it’s like to be an archaeologist in academia, the collaborative nature of the field and why archaeologists have a certain responsibility.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Antoun Al Absi
Antoun Al Absi has been fascinated by microscopes ever since his parents gave him one as a child. Unsurprisingly, the Syrian-French national cherishes the long hours spent on the microscope as part of his AFR PhD at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), where he investigates how tumour cells escape the ‘immune surveillance system’, enabling them to spread to other parts of the body.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Dimitra Anastasiou
In 2015, Dimitra Anastasiou was featured in our campaign ‘Spotlight on Young Researchers’, which highlighted early-career researchers with a connection to Luxembourg. In November 2015, Dimitra moved to Luxembourg with her young family to start her prestigious Marie Curie Individual Fellowship at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). One year on, we caught up with Dimitra!
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Empowering critical digital humanities practice
Digitisation has had a significant impact on humanities research: not only has it changed how many scholars conduct their research, it has also led to completely new fields of research, such as digital humanities, a highly interdisciplinary science. Linguist Lorella Viola is interested in how software can enable critical digital humanities practice.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Taking disruptions into account in life cycle/sustainability assessment
Global supply networks are more complex than ever, and recent global events have shown how susceptible society is to unpredictable disturbances. Scientists are working to understand the effect disruptions have on the sustainability of productive systems with the goal to provide solutions to support decision-making.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Paul Hauseux
Paul Hauseux was always interested in science, but only recently settled on the researcher path. Before that, his career ambitions stretched from working in sports or music to teaching science. Some years and a PhD later, the French national has come to Luxembourg for his computational engineering Postdoc in the team of ERC grantee Stéphane Bordas at the University of Luxembourg.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Gilles Tossing
Gilles Tossing’s fascination for the human brain – and why it sometimes fails – led him to the path of research. Now in the second year of his AFR PhD at Université de Montréal in Canada, the Luxembourg national investigates neurodegenerative diseases, with the aim of improving treatments for those affected.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Laurie Maldonado
Laurie Maldonado’s research focuses on single-parent families. After suddenly becoming a single parent herself, she experienced first-hand how quickly single-parent families can fall into poverty in the United States, not knowing if she could continue her research. Then Laurie secured an AFR PhD grant, conducting her research at the LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg and at UCLA. A few years and a successful PhD defence later, we talked with Laurie about her journey and her close-to-home research.
Spotlight on Young Researchers – revisited 5 years later: From Luxembourg to Australia
When we wrote about Chetan Arora in the 2017 edition of Spotlight on Young Researchers, he was a Postdoc working in requirements engineering at the SnT, having just completed his PhD. 5 years later, Chetan is on the other side of the world working as a Senior Lecturer and Academic Director for coursework research. We spoke to Chetan about how he is still a “houfreg Lëtzebuerger”, what he is working on now, and why after working both in industry and academia, he found his heart to be in the world of research.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: German Castignani
After doing his Master’s degree and working in the private sector in Argentina, German Castignani decided to do a research internship in France, which piqued his interest for research. After completing his PhD in wireless networking in France, the Italian-Argentinian national came to Luxembourg, where he added an entrepreneurial perspective to his vehicular telematics research, co-founding the SnT’s first spin-off Motion-S.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: How is scientific quality fostered by research collaboration?
In the last decades, how research is conducted has been profoundly changed by ICT, and there has also been a shift from the ‘sole genius’ towards teamwork and especially interdisciplinarity: Today, millions of researchers worldwide collaborate across organisational, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries, extending the possibilities of new scientific discovery. This, and the associated data, has paved the way for the scientific field Science of Science, where one key question is understanding exactly how scientific quality is fostered by research collaboration.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Neighbourhood characteristics as determinants of health
Unhealthy lifestyles – unbalanced diet and physical inactivity – are the main factor in the leading cause of death in the world: cardiometabolic disease. Our socioeconomic environment plays a role in these lifestyle choices. Over a 9-year period, researchers are looking at how socio-economic and physical environmental characteristics of residential neighbourhoods shape our physical activity, nutritional behaviour and cardiometabolic health.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Christof Ferreira Torres
Can we truly trust current blockchain technology to securely automate important processes in the financial sector? Christof Ferreira Torres wants to answer this question. In the framework of his Industrial Fellowship PhD with the University of Luxembourg and the bank Spuerkeess (BCEE), the Portuguese national works on the security of smart contracts and the detection of fraudulent transactions – because gaps in security can quickly mean high costs for thousands of people.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Silvia Girardi
Silvia Girardi is a sociologist with an interest in studying policies that aim to contrast poverty. As part of her joint PhD at Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and KU Leuven, the Italian national looks at the social policies that support low-income households in Luxembourg, taking the perspectives of the citizens on the receiving end, and the social workers involved in implementation.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: An algorithm to allocate satellite resources
When the first satellite was launched in the 1950s, earth orbit was a lonely place. Since then, more than 11,000 satellites have been launched into space and over 3,000 are still in operation. Estimates suggest an exponential increase in satellites in the next years, creating a challenge for the effective allocation of the needed bandwidth and power. Researchers are developing algorithms to more effectively allocate the resources where and when they are needed.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Damien Brevers
Postdoc Damien Brevers has a passion for studying self-control abilities in humans. Having spent time in Belgium and the US building expertise in areas including clinical psychology, sport psychology and brain imaging, the Belgian national has just joined the University of Luxembourg and embarked on a project looking at gambling addiction in the age of online betting.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Pier Mario Lupinu
When one thinks of banks and financial institutions, the word ‘research’ may not come to mind. However, research has much to offer these institutions, for example new tools to help with delivering critical services. As part of his PhD at the University of Luxembourg, Italian national Pier Mario Lupinu researches issues related to post-resolution in banking and finance.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: The role a gene plays in neurodegeneration and cancer
Neurogenerative diseases and cancer affect millions of people worldwide, especially people over 60. While advances in diagnosis and treatment have been made, there are still many open questions on the path to better treatment and earlier diagnosis. Translational neuroscientist Pauline Mencke studies a gene that is involved both in Parkinson’s disease and the brain cancer Glioblastoma multiforme.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: László Sándor
For László Sándor research is the ultimate war against ‘fake news’. After completing his PhD in Economics at Harvard, the Hungarian-American national chose a Postdoc position at the Luxembourg School of Finance at the University of Luxembourg, where his work includes big data projects, field experiments in household finance and applied microeconomics.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Identifying environmental pollutants
Nobody is untouched by environmental chemical pollution, but most are unaware of how they are exposed, what to, and the possible health consequences. With over 350,000 registered chemicals in use, an important first step towards assessing their environmental impacts is to make chemical information more machine-readable and open. Environmental Cheminformatics is on the case.