“From Silence to Time,” a lecture by Maria Mota
The Reynaldo dos Santos and Irene Quilhó dos Santos House in Parede will host the lecture “From Silence to Time” by researcher Maria Mota as part of the lecture series “Seeing the Unseen”, dedicated to Maria de Sousa.
By Maria Mota:
For a long time, the hepatic phase of Plasmodium infection was considered a silent stage: the parasite reaches the liver, multiplies for a few days without causing symptoms, and only later, upon invading the red blood cells, does what we call malaria begin. When I began studying this phase of the infection more than two decades ago, one of the questions that lingered was precisely whether this “silence” was real.
Over the years, we have discovered that this is not the case. The liver recognizes the presence of the parasite, triggers immune responses, and sends signals whose consequences can persist well beyond this initial phase of infection. We recently demonstrated that events initiated in the liver can even alter the production and age of the red blood cells that the parasite will later encounter in the blood, thereby helping to determine the course of the disease. The location where an interaction occurs and the time at which it occurs thus become part of the very biology of the infection.
This will also be a talk about another kind of journey. Mine began, to a large extent, when Maria de Sousa chose me to be part of the Master’s program in Immunology she created in Porto. From that choice came Mill Hill, New York, and a life dedicated to science. Maria de Sousa taught several generations of scientists to ask questions before there were paths to finding the answers. This is the story of some of the questions I was fortunate enough to ask.
Information: 214 815 920 (call to national landline network)
Organized by: Cascais City Council
Maria Manuel Mota is a distinguished biologist with a Ph.D. in Parasitology from University College London and postdoctoral experience at the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine. She has led research groups at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and the Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM), where she also served as Executive Director. She was recently appointed CEO of the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM), a new institution created through the merger of the iMM with the Gulbenkian Institute of Science (IGC).
Maria Mota has made significant contributions to advancing knowledge about parasites of the genus Plasmodium, having received prestigious awards such as the EMBO Young Investigator Award and the Sanofi–Institut Pasteur Award. She has published more than 140 articles, holds five patents, and has been invited to give lectures at more than 100 international conferences and renowned research institutions around the world.
