Offside
Limelight

Fernando Guedes and David Rua

Have your say

"I believe that it is our obligation not to hesitate when confronted with projects like these, not only for ourselves, but mainly for the teams we integrate, for the institution we represent...", José Luís Santos

Free Nonsense

"What amazed me the most was USE’s ability to conquer territory. Our “armies” are taking over the building...", Miguel Heleno

Gallery of the Uncommon

One of these days, one of our beloved power systems researchers went to Brazil on a business trip. The airplane takes off from Congonhas, crosses the ceiling of clouds, all seemed normal, but suddenly… something breaks the monotony of the flight.

Jobs 4 the Boys & Girls

In this section, the reader may find reference to public announcements made by INESC Porto offering grants, contracts and other opportunities of the same kind.

Biptoon

More scenes of how life goes merrily on...

 
 

The sequencing of the genome and the alliance IBMC-INESC Porto LA

The sequencing of the genome and the alliance IBMC-INESC Porto LA

Although many were uninformed, the newspapers announced that the genome of the  Drosophila Americana has been sequenced for the first time, and in Portugal. A scientific achievement that is not trivial, even though the media, in their hunger to make matters accessible to the masses, end up trivializing these events.

The fact is that this remarkable accomplishment demonstrates an unequivocal scientific capacity in the University of Porto. The project was led by geneticist Jorge Vieira, who works at IBMC [Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology of Porto]. This achievement makes us all immensely proud, honors its protagonists and highlights the prestige of the institute.

But perhaps a no less imperative aspect has not been fairly stressed: this work and its success were the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between two Associate Laboratories, the tip top of Portuguese research: IBMC and INESC Porto.

Fact: the Associate Laboratories are a model for an exponent of organization and research in Portugal. This example of cross cooperation led to a result of international excellence with a profound significance: the model still surprises us for the virtues it encompasses.

The contribution of computer sciences to genetics – in this case, the contribution from CRACS [Center for Research in Advanced Computing Systems], an autonomous group integrated in INESC Porto, and its researchers led by Nuno Fonseca – cannot be overlooked or lessened. The fact that IBMC has sought for an alliance with another center of competence, instead of trying to perform a computing simulation indoors, only demonstrates how far have gone the maturity of Portuguese science and the understanding of its agents on the true path to progress.

The combination of competences is our strength. Competences, we always had them, in greater or lesser importance. But the ability to build bridges between different areas is sadly too often absent.

May the example bear fruits (regardless of the fruit fly).