Grupo de trabalho e interversão em psicologia na procriação medicamente assistida - GIPPMA

With a view to improving provision of care in the field of Psychology in the context of Medically Assisted Procreation (PMA), the GIPPMA - Working Group and Intervision in Psychology at PMA was created in 2019. This informal group includes Psychologists who carry out their work activities in a hospital of the SNS (North Zone) and a professor/researcher. The GIPPMA emerged on the personal initiative of these professionals with the central assumption of creating a shared practical approach, overcoming some of the difficulties present in clinical practice. The group's objectives are: to build standardized psychological protocols in the field of PMA (pre-treatment evaluation, treatment and post-treatment protocols), as well as to develop, evaluate and propose work initiatives aimed at disseminating solutions and good practices in this area. GIPPMA has been emphasizing joint scientific research, seeking to contribute to knowledge on the subject, crucial as a basis for intervention. Similar to other areas of Psychology, which are undergoing rapid development and change, requiring professionals to be constantly updated/trained, this group also includes Clinical Intervision. Taking advantage of the geographical proximity and formal relations between institutions and following what the Portuguese Psychologists Association has been highlighting, GIPPMA considers this area of its activity as relevant in promoting well-being and self-care of professionals, in facilitating training and continuous development, as well as a safe and quality professional practice.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A numerical study of the heat distribution generated by a microheater in an organ-on-a-chip chamber

In an organ-on-a-chip (OoC), temperature must be kept stable for a well-controlled and human representative microenvironment. This work presents the numerical simulation of a microheater to be integrated in a polydimethylsiloxane chamber that will comprise an OoC. Numerical simulations were performed to evaluate the heat distribution, considering the fluid flow and its direction, the microheater and substrate materials, and the thickness of the oxide layer (electric insulator), on top of the microheater. Silicon (Si) and glass for the substrate, and platinum (Pt) and aluminium (Al) for the microheater materials were evaluated. Results showed that the Si substrate assured better heat uniformity than glass, although reaching lower temperature values, for the same input power. For the microheater, although Al achieved better heat uniformity than Pt, it needed higher current to reach the same temperatures (ranging from 35-45°C). The oxide layer thickness did not affect the achieved temperature. The Si substrate/Pt microheater microsystem was able to heat the fluid chamber up to the 35-45°C range, with current consumption from 0.06 A to 0.1 A, respectively, showing good heat uniformity and low power consumption. Regarding the fluid flow, the domain temperature decreases as the flow rate increases, for the same actuation conditions. It was also analysed the effect of the flux direction and it was observed that, at 120 μL/min , it did not affect the heat distribution in the chamber.This work has been supported by the project PTDC/EEI-EEE/2846/2021 and partially by 2022.02165.PTDC, through national funds (OE), within the scope of the Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects (IC&DT) program in all scientific domains (PTDC), through the Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. (FCT, I.P). The authors also acknowledge the partial financial support within the R&D Unit Project Scope: UIDB/04436/2020. Gabriel M. Ferreira thanks FCT for his Ph.D. grant with reference 2022.10519.BD. Paulo Sousa, Vânia Pinto and Susana Catarino thank FCT for their contracts funding provided through 2021.01086.CEECIND, 2021.01087.CEECIND and 2020.00215.CEECIND, respectively

Centro de investigação CMEMS-UMinho: desenvolvimento de estratégias avançadas em plataformas biomédicas miniaturizadas

Miniaturized platforms have been under intensive development in many technological fields including biomedicine, pharmacology, biosecurity, food safety, environmental monitoring, among others. They are ideally miniature versions of their macroscale counterparts and thus usually integrate all components units of a complete laboratory assay. The attractiveness of miniaturization, especially in the biomedical field, can be attributed to their portability, low sample and reagents/solutions consumption, and reduced response time and cost assays. However, many challenges still need to be overcome to cross the challenging academia to industry barrier for their commercialization and widespread adoption. In the scope of the present communication, it is intended to discuss important development in the field carried out at the CMEMS-UMinho research center, including the development of a new generation of microfluidic substrates, biomimetic microfluidic cell culture environments, quantification of clinically relevant biomarkers, organ-on-a-chip for drug delivery monitoring, lab-on-a-chip for phytoplankton identification, lab-on-a-chip for cells sorting, among others.As plataformas miniaturizadas têm vindo a sofrer um desenvolvimento ativo em diversas áreas tecnológicas, incluindo biomedicina, farmacologia, biossegurança, segurança alimentar, monitorização ambiental, entre outras. Estas consistem, idealmente, em versões miniaturizadas de sistemas homólogos à macroescala e, portanto, tipicamente integram todos os componentes necessário para um ensaio laboratorial. A atratividade da miniaturização, principalmente na área da biomédica, é atribuída à sua portabilidade, baixo consumo de amostras e reagentes/soluções, e redução no tempo de resposta e custo dos ensaios. No entanto, é necessário, ainda, superar muitos desafios para atravessar a barreira “academia versus indústria”, de modo a avançar para a sua comercialização e adoção generalizada. No âmbito da presente comunicação, pretendem-se discutir importantes desenvolvimentos na área, realizados no centro de investigação CMEMS-UMinho, incluindo o desenvolvimento de uma nova geração de substratos microfluídicos, ambientes microfluídicos biomiméticos para cultura de células, quantificação de biomarcadores clinicamente relevantes, organ-on-a-chip para monitorização de entrega de medicamentos, lab-on-a-chip para identificação de fitoplâncton, labon-a-chip para triagem de células, entre outros

Experimental characterization of a piezoelectric transducer for integration into a photoacoustic system

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a medical imaging modality that has been gaining relevance in the last decade due to its potential to safely acquire images, ranging from organelles to organs, without radiation. PAI uses the best features of both optical and acoustic methods. In this methodology, the target tissue is excited by a light source, triggering a local temperature rise in the tissue, which generates ultrasonic waves that are subsequently acquired by an ultrasound transducer. This hybrid modality allows a wide range of potential applications, namely in clinical medicine, preclinical research, and biology. This work aims at the experimental characterization of a piezoelectric transducer, towards developing the detection module of a photoacoustic system for biomolecule monitoring. Throughout the characterization of the transducers, we analyzed the resonance frequency, the reflection coefficient, and the outputted voltage amplitude. The electrical characterization showed resonance frequencies of 89 kHz and 4 MHz in the radial and longitudinal directions, respectively, which agree with the theory. Experimentally, by evaluating the acoustic propagation between an emitting and a receiving transducer, it was possible to observe a linear relationship between the amplitude of the emitted and received waves. In contrast, the amplitude of the received wave varies inversely with the distance between the transducers.This work has been supported by the project Eye-on-shell (EXPL/EAM-OCE/1155/2021), and partially supported by the project DrugSENS (2022.02165.PTDC) and MSenOoC (PTDC/EEI-EEE/2846/2021), through national funds (OE), within the scope of the Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects (IC&DT) program in all scientific domains (PTDC), through the Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. (FCT, I.P). The authors also acknowledge the partial financial support within the R&D Unit Project Scope: UIDB/04436/2020. Susana Catarino, Paulo Sousa and Vania Pinto thank FCT for their contracts funding provided ˆ through 2020.00215.CEECIND, 2021.01086.CEECIND and 2021.01087.CEECIND, respectively

Numerical simulation, fabrication, and characterization of a heating system for integration into an Organ-on-a-Chip

In an organ-on-a-chip (OoC) device, temperature control is essential for a well-controlled and human representative microenvironment. This work presents the design, numerical simulation, fabrication and characterization of three aluminium microheater geometries for temperature control into an OoC device. Two of them are circular-based, with different curvature filleting angles and different line widths, and the third is a Hilbert-based geometry. Numerical simulations in COMSOL Multiphysics were performed to evaluate the heat distribution and power consumption of each resistive microheater, by Joule effect, according to target temperature range needed: 35 ºC (physiological) to 45 ºC (hyperthermia). Those simulated microheaters were fabricated on top of a glass substrate, using standard microfabrication technologies and bonded to a polydimethylsiloxane chamber that will contain the cultured organ model. An infrared thermal camera was used for the experimental heating tests and a proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller, implemented on a printed circuit board, was used for monitoring and controlling the chamber temperature around its target range. Despite the observed differences between the numerical and experimental power consumption, needed for reaching the target temperatures, the obtained heating distribution and the temperature variations showed a good match for all geometries. Both the numerical and experimental results of the Hilbert-based geometry showed an ellipsoidal heat distribution in the circular culture chamber, which allowed to conclude an impair in the chamber temperature uniformity. Regarding the PID controller of the heating system, it was tested for long periods of time (>12 h) without loss of performance or overheating and the results showed a variation of 0.05 ºC/s during the cooling and 0.02 ºC/s during the heating phases, with a resolution of 1 ºC for temperatures up to 42 ºC, and ~0.5 ºC for temperatures below 38 ºC. Thus, the developed numerical approach enabled to qualitatively predict the performance of different microheater geometries, allowing to optimize the heating system performance, required for integration into an OoCThis work has been supported by the project PTDC/EEI-EEE/2846/ 2021 and partially by 2022.02165. PTDC, through national funds (OE), within the scope of the Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects (IC&DT) program in all scientific domains (PTDC), through the Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. (FCT, I.P). The authors also acknowledge the partial financial support within the R&D Unit Project Scope: UIDB/04436/2020. Gabriel M. Ferreira thanks FCT for his Ph.D. grant with reference 2022.10519. BD. Paulo Sousa, Vania ˆ Pinto and Susana Catarino thank FCT for their contracts funding provided through 2021.01086. CEECIND, 2021.01087. CEECIND and 2020.00215. CEECIND, respectively. The authors would like to thank Dr. Paulo Mendes for access to the IR camera

Numerical and experimental investigations on micromixers geometries for high ratio flow rates

The micromixers presented here were designed to be implemented into a pH lab-on-a-chip (LOC) with a flow rate ratio of 19:1. The studied micromixers are based on passive mixing and planar geometries, which makes them easy to fabricate and integrate in microfluidic devices. Numerical simulations in COMSOL and experimental results are in good agreement and show excellent mixing performance for all tested micromixers. The study of micromixers performance with such a high ratio of the inlets flow rate has not yet been found in state-of-the-art, and, for that reason, this work might represent an important contribution in the field of micromixers when high disparity in the inlets flow rate are needed, as well as for further integration into the seawater pH LOC.This work was co-financed by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE2020), through Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER), Project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000032 – NextSea and by project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-029394, supported by NORTE2020, under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), IP, project PTDC/EMD-EMD/29394/2017

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved