Acelerar a Inovação Terapêutica - para uma longevidade mais saudável

The main goal of this project is to develop innovative therapies that enhance health and well-being, with a particular focus on promoting a healthy longevity and addressing age-related pathologies such as cancer, neurological disorders, and mental health conditions. At a Initial Phase (Year 1 – Early Year 2), the goals will be: - Regarding Drug Discovery (Activity 3), to identify and characterize novel small molecules with antiseizure effects, antioxidant properties for Parkinson’s disease treatment, inhibitory activity against STEP1 and ADK for targeted therapy in prostate cancer and glioblastoma. - Regarding biologics and nanomedicines development (Activity 4), to identify potential molecular targets (mutated genes in congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism), evaluate biologic drugs, and initiate the development of nanomedicines for delivering therapeutic nucleic acids, proteins, and peptides—either alone or in combination with conventional drugs—with a focus on neuroprotection and anticancer applications, namely: to evaluate the therapeutic potential of the protein Argonaute2 in Parkinson’s disease cell models; optimize the production, purification and formulation protocols for biological drug candidates. - Concerning the Exercise and Aging Study (Activity 5), to design, recruit participants, and initiate the study evaluating the effects of resistance training volume on physical, cognitive, and physiological outcomes in institutionalized individuals. - Finally, in the scope of Digital Biomarkers and AI-Driven Mental Health Tools (Activity 6), to develop digital biomarkers for detecting physiological and behavioral patterns related to mental health changes; implement Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to analyze texts and dialogues, identifying linguistic patterns and emotional variations linked to psychiatric disorders; initiate the development of monitoring systems capable of recognizing verbal and non-verbal indicators of mental illness; start the development of an improved Interactive Virtual Therapist with enhanced empathy, engagement, and adaptive screening capabilities. At an advanced Phase (Mid-Year 2 – Project Completion), the goals will be: -To continue drug evaluation (Activity 3) by assessing safety and refining pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles of selected drug candidates, focusing also on antimicrobial activity, serum protein binding, and interactions with transporters and ion channels; - To perform biologics and Nanomedicines validation in vitro and in vivo (Activity 4); - To complete the Exercise Intervention and perform its full assessment (Activity 5) and further develop a system for analyzing human movement patterns using electronic devices; - To complete AI-Driven Mental Health Solutions (Activity 6) by advance the development of AI tools, focusing on multimodal analysis and data fusion for mental health monitoring, enhancing explainability and ethical considerations in AI applications, refining text-based descriptors for mental health assessment, studying mutual eye gaze and its role in therapeutic alliance, further optimizing and validating adaptive screening and diagnosis models, and finally, implement and finalize the monitoring platform and Virtual Therapist for practical application.