Collaborative Programs & Consortia

iNOVA4Health (i4H) is a leading translational medicine research unit, that has played a central role in advancing precision medicine in Portugal since 2015.

Coordinated by iBET (Prof. Manuel Carrondo) since its genesis until 2024, it is now under the coordination of NOVA Medical School (Prof. Sílvia Conde) for the 2025-2029 funding period.

Mission & Thematic Lines

The unit’s mission focuses on developing innovative therapies targeting chronic diseases and to promote healthy ageing. It emphasizes early-stage translational research, connecting biomedical discovery with clinical application.

Since 2025, i4H has embraced a matrix-based approach, combining biological complexity (vertical pillars) with technological approaches (horizontal axes). This integrated model aims to promote transformative translational research, addressing clinical needs by leveraging technological advances, creating novel health solutions, and encouraging collaboration among research groups and partnering institutes.

The vertical pillars are P1 – Microenvironments in Ageing and Diseases, P2 – Systemic Organization of Homeostasis, and P3 – Precision Medicine; while the horizontal axes are A1 – Tools to Explore the Cell, A2 – Disease Modeling Platforms, and A3 – Early Diagnosis and Advanced Therapies.

Research Ecosystem

Besides iBET, i4H integrates a transdisciplinary network of four other partner institutions: NOVA Medical School (NMS), Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier (ITQB NOVA), Portugal’s largest cancer hospital – Instituto Português de Oncologia de Lisboa Francisco Gentil (IPOLFG) and NOVA Institute for Medical Systems Biology (NIMSB), a newly joined partner in 2025.

Green-it is a research unit, where iBET collaborates with ITQB NOVA’s Plant Biology and Biotechnology Labs to develop innovative tools and solutions aimed at enhancing plant production and quality.

Coordinated by ITQB NOVA (Prof. Margarida Oliveira), the unit focuses on developing plant science research, bridging fundamental laboratory studies and applied fieldwork, to develop tools and solutions that address the challenges imposed by an increasing population, climate instability, and the urgent need for economic and environmental sustainability.

Research Ecosystem

Green-it gathers researchers from four other leading institutions: Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM), Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária (INIAV), Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) and the collaborative laboratory InnovPlantProtect (InPP).

LS4FUTURE is an Associate Laboratory launched in 2022, uniting four research units and five institutions to advance life sciences through a transdisciplinary approach.

Mission & Thematic Lines

Its mission embraces the One Health concept, addressing environmental and human health challenges across four thematic lines:

• TL1 – From Molecules to Ecosystems,
• TL2 – Mechanisms of Disease for Precision Medicine,
• TL3- Advanced Therapeutics: Discovery and Development (co-coordinated by iBET),
• TL4 – Biotechnology for a Sustainable World (co-coordinated by iBET).

With over 500 PhD holders, including prestigious ERC and EMBO awardees, LS4FUTURE fosters innovation through strong research, education, and industry partnerships, offering extensive training programs and promoting career development, internationalization, and science translation to clinical and industrial sectors.

Research Ecosystem

LS4FUTURE gathers top-level critical mass in the Life Sciences area by bringing together four research units (MOSTMICRO-ITQB NOVA, iNOVA4Health, Green-it and Gulbenkian Ciência) and five institutions (ITQB NOVA, NMS, iBET, Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine – GIMM and IPOLFG).

canSERV is an EU-funded project under the Horizon Europe programme that provides cutting edge, interdisciplinary and customised oncology services across all stages of cancer research.

canSERV aims to offer a comprehensive portfolio of oncology-related research services available to all scientists in EU member countries, associated countries and beyond.

ISIDORe is a European consortium coordinated by the European Research Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents (ERINHA), bringing together 154 research organizations and 17 major life sciences infrastructures to create the largest and most diverse European platform for infectious diseases research.

It supports studies on epidemic-  and pandemic-prone pathogens by offering free transnational access to a wide range of high-quality services (from structural biology to clinical trials), helping accelerate the development of medical countermeasures and strengthen epidemic preparedness in Europe and beyond.

TRANSVAC2 is a European Vaccine R&D Infrastructure funded by the European Commission (under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme).

Building on the success of the initial TRANSVAC initiative, TRANSVAC2 provides academic and non-academic groups with access to expert services, reagents, and facilities to accelerate the development of both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines. Support is delivered through 4 service platforms: Technology, Immunocorrelates & Systems Biology, Animal Models, and Clinical Trial Support.

iBET contributes through multiple activities in cross-platform pre-clinical screening and optimization, leveraging vaccine platform technologies (including proteins, viral like particles, and viral vectors) and multiple expression systems (mammalian and insect cells), pre-clinical GLP production services, and the development and implementation of analytical methods for product characterization and process control/monitoring. See more details here.

ARDAT is a consortium of 32 international partners from academia, industry, and SMEs, aiming to provide the knowledge, tools, and standards needed to advance R&D of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs), including cell/gene therapies.

ARDAT receives support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) 2 Joint Undertaking, co-funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA.

iBET’s contribution focuses on the development and employment of 3D innate immune-competent in vitro models of the human CNS to study immune responses elicited by gene therapy vectors (rAAV). See more details here.

ORGESTRA is an EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Joint Doctoral Network dedicated to training 13 PhD candidates to conduct advanced research that addresses critical challenges in the field of organoid technologies for disease modelling, drug discovery and development for rare diseases.

This joint PhD program provides interdisciplinary and international training across 14 partners in seven European countries.

iBET is a Host Institution for one of the Doctoral Projects focused on Upscaling and Standardization of Organoids Culturing (see more details here).

CAARE is an EU-funded Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network aiming to train 14 doctoral students and bring together leading experts to advance downstream processing and analytical technologies for bionanoparticle manufacturing.

The consortium includes seven research institutions and nine associated partners, including six from the biopharmaceutical industry.

iBET is a Host Institution for two doctoral projects, focusing on the impact of continuous downstream process in complex biotherapeutic particles manufacturing and on scale-up strategies for purification of bionanoparticles (see more details here).

EVH is a pan-European center, dedicated to strengthening Europe’s capacity to rapidly develop safe, effective, and scalable vaccines in response to future global health crises.

EVH brings together 11 Beneficiaries and 13 Affiliated and Associated entities from 7 European countries.

iBET participates in the strategic Pillar 4 – Regulation & Manufacturing, coordinated by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the Center for Pandemic Vaccines and Therapeutics (ZEPAI). See more details here.