Initiatives

2024 HOPTEC Grant Competition 

The HOPTEC Grant Competition is an annual funding opportunity available to students and postdoctoral researchers from both Técnico and Hopkins to propose a small research co-project, promoting direct collaborations opportunities between the two schools. 

Applications will be open until December 2nd and the winners will be announced in the 2024 HOPTEC Annual Symposium on December 18th 2024. The competition is open to any duo consisting of one master’s/PhD student or postdoc from Técnico and one from Hopkins. Applying teams are required to submit a joint proposal detailing the following information in a 2-page limit document:

• Title & Abstract;
• Background information on the research topic;
• Preliminary findings;
• Anticipated outcomes & potential challenges;
• Short description of specific contributions of each co-researcher. 
• CVs of co-researchers (attachments). 

The HOPTEC Scientific committee will evaluate the submissions and select the top 3 proposals based on the project’s merits, potential impact, and feasibility. Each of the 3 winning teams will receive a €1000 grant to support research expenses related to their project. This funding can be used for purchasing small equipment, materials, or services necessary to advance the collaboration. Participants are also invited to present their scientific outcomes at the 2025 HOPTEC Annual Symposium, which will be a valuable experience to increase the visibility for their work. The required documents should be sent to hoptec@tecnico.ulisboa.pt.

2024 HOPTEC Annual Symposium

The HOPTEC Annual Symposium is the annual in-person event of the HOPTEC Project, hosted by Técnico Lisboa and Johns Hopkins on an alternating schedule. The 2024 edition will take place at Técnico on December 18th, with the participation of experts in the Bioengineering field from both institutions. The event will also be the stage of the HOPTEC Poster Competition (below) and the announcement of the 2024 HOPTEC Grant Competition results. Students and postdocs from Hopkins interested in attending the event are eligible to receive a bursary to support travel costs, according to the regulation below.

 

2024 HOPTEC Symposium Travel Award

Students and postdocs from Hopkins can apply for a €500 Travel Bursary Award. Applications will be open until November 22nd and should be sent to hoptec@tecnico.ulisboa.pt This bursary supports travel to Lisbon for in-person participation in the 2024 HOPTEC Annual Symposium. The HOPTEC scientific committee will award four bursaries based on an application detailing the following:

• 1-page motivation letter
• CV
• Hopkins transcripts. 

Any unclaimed bursaries will be given to wait-listed applicants. 

 

2024 HOPTEC Symposium Poster Competition

The Poster Competition aims to encourage students to share their research and knowledge while fostering networking among researchers from similar or different fields. Participants can present one A3 poster each, focusing on engineering applied to life sciences. The poster session at the HOPTEC Annual Symposium is open to all students from Técnico and Hopkins. A panel of three judges will select the top three posters based on originality, impact, design, future research potential, and student’s presentation. Each of the three winners will receive a €50 voucher. All presenters will receive free lunch. To formalise the application, the poster should be sent to hoptec@tecnico.ulisboa.pt through a zipped file or accessible link until December 2nd.

HOPTEC Webinar Series

The HOPTEC webinar series aims to promote collaboration and networking opportunities in bioengineering between Johns Hopkins University and Técnico Lisboa.

The previous sessions are listed below and available here:

• First webinar: Quantitative 3D Reconstruction and Genetic Mapping of Pancreatic Cancer Precursors Reveals Shocking Heterogeneity by Ashley Kiemen, PhD, Assistant Professor, Pathology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Mimicking the Formation of Living Tissues: The apparent paradox of cell self-organization in human PSC-derived organoids by Tiago Fernandes, PhD, Assistant Professor, Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico.
• Second webinar: Unsupervised Multi-omics Approaches for Cancer Drug Target and Biomarker Discovery by Emanuel Gonçalves, PhD, Assistant Professor, INESC-ID, Instituto Superior Técnico and Convergence approach to study cell state transitions in pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) by Luciane Kagohara, PhD, Assistant Professor, Oncology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
• Third webinar: Aging and senescence at single-cell resolution by Jude Phillip, PhD, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University and Innovating the Manufacturing of Stem Cell-based Therapies by Cláudia Lobato da Silva, PhD, Associate Professor, Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico.

The fourth webinar will take place on October 29 at 3 pm (Lisbon time), with presentations from Professor Nuno Bernardes (DBE, Instituto Superior Técnico) and Professor Stavroula Sofou (Johns Hopkins University). Register through this link.

The upcoming sessions will be announced soon.

The Program

Framework

In the past decade, several students from Técnico have had the opportunity to conduct the research for their master’s thesis as visiting scholars at Hopkins in the area of Bioengineering. As a result, all the visiting students completed their dissertation work with distinction. The overall feedback from the students is that conducting research at Hopkins was a lifetime opportunity that deeply shaped their personal and professional path. For the students involved in this exchange, the main highlights of this collaboration included having access to cutting edge technological tools, transfer of knowledge and interdisciplinary research.

At the initiative of some of these students, now alumni, in collaboration with Técnico’s International Affairs Division, a project was presented and received support from FLAD, the Luso-American Development Foundation, named HOPTEC.

 

About the Event

The first edition of the HOPTEC Scholarship Program offers outstanding students the opportunity to develop research for their master’s thesis at the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University in the area of cancer research for a period of 6 months (from March to August 2024).

 

Program

• Training Opportunities: 2 HOPTEC Scholarships for Técnico Master’s students to conduct the research for their master’s degree at Hopkins. In return, these two students would be named HOPTEC Ambassadors and be involved in the HOPTEC activities.
• Dynamic Collaborations: HOPTEC Seminar Series; HOPTEC Annual Symposium; HOPTEC Grant Competition. (Events to be announced in 2024)
• Scientific Advancements: By creating a network of exchange students and active collaborations, HOPTEC will promote the transfer of knowledge and skills between institutions, leading to impactful discoveries.

Objectives

• Promote transfer of knowledge and skills between institutions
• Provide cutting edge research opportunities
• Shape personal and professional paths to students from both institutions

 

Scholarship Details

The HOPTEC Scholarship Program covers travelling, provides guidance regarding visa and housing matters, and ensures that the host institution (Hopkins) will provide a stipend to help support the selected students while living in Baltimore.

• Covers travelling
• Provides guidance on visa and housing
• Hopkins will provide a stipend to support students

The application period is open until December 1st 2024, resulting in the attribution of two 6-month Master Thesis scholarships (from March to August 2025).

 

Eligibility Criteria

• The applicant must be a student enrolled in the 2nd year of a Master’s program at Técnico Lisboa, in the field of Bioengineering (or related fields, if well-justified in the personal statement).
• The applicant only has 30 ECTS (dissertation) left to complete at the beginning of the 4th semester of the Master’s degree.
• The applicant has a minimum grade average equal or above 16/20 in the Master’s degree (previous semesters) and 14/20 in the Bachelor’s degree.
• The applicant has at least intermediate written and spoken English proficiency (no certificates required).

Applying

• Online application due December 1st, 2024
• Application process includes CV, transcripts, statement of purpose
• Interview, to be scheduled later

Selection Process

• The selection process will be initiated with an online application including:
  – Application Cover Page (download here)
  – Personal statement (your background, motivation, future aspirations, etc).
  – Curriculum vitae.
  – Transcripts from Bachelor and Master’s degrees.
• Application materials should be in English (mandatory for personal statement and CV). The application package must be sent to hoptec@tecnico.ulisboa.pt by December 1st, 2024 by 23:59 (GMT) with the subject “HOPTEC – Name” (for instance: HOPTEC_MariaAlmeida).

The HOPTEC selection committee is composed of the two HOPTEC Program chairs, two professors from Técnico and two professors from Hopkins. This committee will select the 4-6 top applicants based on the submitted applications for a formal interview with at least one professor from each university. Interviews will take place in December 2024. After the interviews, the 2 top students will be selected in a final selection committee meeting.

Selected students will be announced on a date to be confirmed.

 

HOPTEC Ambassadors

The awarded students will be named HOPTEC Ambassadors. In addition to completing their master’s work with an international experience in Hopkins, the HOPTEC Ambassadors will be responsible for the following:

• Participating in the HOPTEC Seminar Series;
• Organization of the HOPTEC Annual Symposium;
• Designing and giving a workshop based on the content of their dissertation work during the HOPTEC Annual Symposium;
• Providing guidance to the next generation of HOPTEC Ambassadors.

Questions can be emailed to hoptec@tecnico.ulisboa.pt with the subject “HOPTEC – question”.

 

HOPTEC  Founders

	Inês Godet. My academic background in bioengineering provides me with problem solving skills to study biological systems using innovative and interdisciplinary approaches. During my PhD, I conducted research in the lab of Dr. Daniele Gilkes at Johns Hopkins University. My PhD project focused on establishing a fluorescent fate-mapping system that allowed us to map the fate of cells that experienced intratumoral hypoxia throughout the metastatic cascade. We found that post-hypoxic cells are more invasive, metastatic and chemoresistant.
	André Forjaz. Pursuing his PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the laboratory of Prof. Denis Wirtz at Johns Hopkins University. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Tecnico, at the University of Lisbon. André’s research focuses on application of novel AI and computer vision algorithms to study anatomical tissues. Through the implementation of CODA, a software for 3D reconstruction of tissues at single cell resolution, André studies changes in normal, and diseased tissues, such as pancreatic, lung and ovarian/fallopian tube cancers.
	Denise Castilho de Matos. Has a Postgraduate degree in International Relations, a M.A. in African Studies and completed her advanced PhD training course in Human Geography, specialization in European Public Policy. Currently, she coordinates the International Affairs Division at Instituto Superior Técnico – ULisboa. She is involved in several European projects with emphasis in communication, internationalization strategies and entrepreneurship. She has over 15 years of experience in international relations: in and outbound student and staff mobility, international student recruitment, strategic partnerships, innovative academic programmes and project management.

Crucial HOPTEC Contributors

Prof. Denis Wirtz. As Vice Provost for Research and Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Denis Wirtz has made groundbreaking contributions to the physics of cell migration and mechanobiology. Through quantitative methods like particle tracking microrheology, Wirtz pioneers research on 3D cell motility, bacterial division, and high-throughput phenotyping. His 250+ seminal publications have 31,000+ citations, and he has been elected Fellow of AIMBE, AAAS and APS. Wirtz founded the Institute for NanoBioTechnology at Hopkins and directs multiple NCI training programs. His recent CODA technology enables AI-powered 3D tumor imaging. With degrees from the Free University of Brussels and Stanford, Wirtz’s prolific, cross-disciplinary career spans physics, biology and oncology.

Prof. Cláudia Lobato da Silva Prof. Fátima Montemor Prof. Tiago Fernandes Prof. Rogério Colaço

Former Students

Several Técnico students have already conducted thesis research at Hopkins with great success, completing dissertations with distinction.

• Eduarda Vaz [2022 – 2023]
• Vasco Queiroga [2022 – 2023]
• André Forjaz [2019-2020]
• João Brás [2015 – 2016]
• Ana Maria Carmo [2015 – 2016]
• Inês Godet [2014-2015]
• Alexandre Carnet [2014-2015]
• Duarte Ferreira [2014-2015]
• Leonor Guedes Da Silva [2013 – 2014]