Two iBET Lab Heads Secure Inter-institutional Projects Within LS4FUTURE Seed Funding Program
Strengthening Collaborative Work Between Partnering Institutions
iBET Lab Heads, Margarida Serra and António Roldão, secured two projects under the 2025 LS4FUTURE Seed Funding – Pathway to Larger Grants program.
This funding initiative, promoted by LS4FUTURE Associate Laboratory, of which iBET is a partner institution, supports short-term, high-impact inter-institutional projects designed to pave the way toward securing larger international grants.
The two projects are:
CREATE – Personalized CAR T-cell Manufacturing to Improve Efficacy and Safety in Lymphoid Malignancies Lead Institution: Margarida Serra – iBET; Co-applicants: Ximo Duarte & Maria Gomes da Silva – IPO Lisboa. CREATE aims to improve the safety, efficacy, and personalization of CAR T-cell therapies by optimizing leukapheresis timing and refining biomanufacturing parameters. Focusing on aggressive B-cell malignancies, the team will study patient-specific cellular characteristics to tailor production in small-scale bioreactors.
CREATE promotes collaborative translational research in biotherapeutics between iBET and IPO Lisboa, Portugal’s largest cancer hospital, supporting LS4FUTURE’s Thematic Lines 2 and 3 (know more here).
DOPAMINd – Sustainable Bio-based Dopamine Production Through Advanced Fermentation Lead Institution: Isabel Rocha – ITQB NOVA, Co-applicant: Antonio Roldão – iBET This project aims to develop an eco-friendly bioprocess for dopamine, a critical molecule in therapeutics and materials, using engineered E. coli strains that bypass traditional L-DOPA pathways. Building on previous European-funded projects, the team will focus on fermentation scale-up, resolving metabolic bottlenecks, and modelling industrial-scale production.
DOPAMINd bridges expertise from both institutes on synthetic biology and sustainable industrial biotechnology, supporting LS4FUTURE’s Thematic Lines 3 & 4 (know more here).
