PhD student  Francisco Olivença, integrates the iMed.ULisboa’s research hub Host-Pathogen Interactions, and is work is being supervised by Maria João Catalão and co-supervised by Elsa Anes and João Paulo Gomes was distinguished with the UC-Life Sciences Award, in the category of Biology.

The selected work “Uncovering Beta-Lactam Susceptibility Patterns in Clinical Isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis through Whole-Genome Sequencing” was published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum of the American Society for Microbiology. This study links susceptibility assays to beta-lactam antibiotics on clinical strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated in Portugal with genome sequencing data to verify the existence of associations between susceptibility levels and various characteristics of the strains. The obtained results contribute to a more comprehensive view of the repositioning of these antibiotics against tuberculosis, namely for drug-resistant forms of the infection.

The UC-Life Sciences Awards are awarded by the Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra and aim to recognize PhD or Master students who are authors of the best article published in an international journal in the areas of Anthropology, Biology and Biochemistry.