Category Archives: Ricardo Costeira

Science Uncovered 2017

10th October 2017Panos Kirmizakis, Ricardo Costeira, Tatiana CocervaNick Johnston

The ESRs based at QUB recently attended a public engagement event. Here’s Panos with his thoughts:

Science Uncovered, which has been held in over 300 European cities for many years, took place on Friday September 29th with great success. The venue where European Researchers’ Night 2017 took place – Ulster Museum – was flooded with people; it attracted young and old alike. The audience, with particular love, embraced this multidisciplinary scientific event and listened to a variety of scientific talks, met young researchers, and participated dynamically in this fascinating tour of the world of science, research and technology.

It turns out that science keeps not only the interest of the public but also of the scientists/researchers themselves. The REMEDIATE team was there with Panagiotis, Tatiana, and Ricardo to welcome the public and speak about “Monitoring & clean up of contaminants using natural microbial batteries”, “Bioaccessibility of heavy metals in urban areas” and “Gene sequencing of contaminated groundwater (Do bugs catch colds?)”. We were asked a number of great questions, and enjoyed talking to everyone who came to our stand, as well as meeting other researchers who were at the event.

To learn more about Science Uncovered and the participating research groups, visit the Ulster Museum website

https://www.nmni.com/whats-on/science-uncovered

AquaConSoil 2017

19th September 2017About Remediate, Coren Pulleyblank, Diogo Santos, Neha Mehta, Panos Kirmizakis, Peter Brennan, Ricardo Costeira, Sabrina Cipullo, Seyedmorteza Seyedpour, Stacie Tardif, Tatiana Cocerva, Yi ZhaoNick Johnston

Tatiana Cocerva and a number of the other Remediate ESRs went to ACS2017 this summer. Enjoy her great summary of the events they all enjoyed!

Working hard setting up experiments, getting the expected results, and publishing your work in great journals are all key goals for a researcher; communicating your research at a conference is also a professionally valuable experience.
This year, REMEDIATE participants had the opportunity to attend the AquaConSoil Conference that took place in Lyon, France on the 26^th-30^th June 2017. This event brought together students, scientists, industry professionals, and policy makers from all over the world. Presentations covered the areas of sustainable use and management of soil, sediment, and water resources.

Sabrina, Tatiana, Stacie, Panagiotis, Yi, Morteza, Diogo, and Neha (REMEDIATE Early Stage Researchers) presented their research to a wide audience in a special session “Improved decision making for contaminated land site investigation and risk assessment”, chaired by Professor Frederic Coulon (supervisor at Cranfield University). It was a very interesting session, after which we received valuable feedback and appreciation of our work. Ricardo, Coren, and Peter chose to disseminate their work in a poster session, where they actively engaged with other conference attendees, and exchanged ideas with many of them.

Being a researcher should be challenging and fun
Social events and informal meetings are the best way to create new collaborations and build new friendships. What can be more rewarding than having dinner with your colleagues after a full day of listening to interesting presentations and meeting nice people? The REMEDIATE team added researchers and new friends from Italy, Germany, Netherlands, and Chile to its network.

The conference dinner was organised in a friendly atmosphere where REMEDIATE supervisors and researchers socialised with different conference attendees in a relaxed, informal environment. Tatiana engaged in interesting discussions with the team from BRGM (French geological survey), and found that they shared a similar network and friends in France. What a happy coincidence! After dinner, a DJ boosted everyone’s energy and we all remembered that professional people can combine research and fun.

We are very grateful to all the organisers for this amazing, memorable conference. This was a great experience for all of us and we were inspired, challenged, and more motivated in our work. We look forward to attending the next conference with the same positive mood!

Celebrating Science History

9th May 2017Ricardo CosteiraNick Johnston

By Ricardo Costeira

In 1917, while working with bacterial isolates from wounded World War soldiers in France, Félix d’Herelle published what he called the discovery of “an invisible, antagonistic microbe of the dysentery bacillus”. d’Herelle had discovered bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. One hundred years later, phage research is intrinsically linked to other major scientific events: from the identification of DNA as the genetic material, all the way to the discovery of CRISPR-Cas systems.

This year, it was with excitement that I I flew to Paris to attend the 100^th anniversary celebration of bacteriophage research at Institut Pasteur, the “cradle” of bacteriophages and, arguably, the most important microbiology research institute in the world.

Over the course of 3 days, I was honoured to listen to world-class scientists sharing major breakthroughs in phage research and, as a REMEDIATE scientist working on environmental virology myself, I received the honour of sharing my own findings with the rest of the phage scientific community in what was a very special event.

From studies on global ocean viromes and biogeochemical cycling, to studies on phage therapies as solutions for antibiotic resistance, these 3 days in Paris showed that phage research is booming all around the world and that it is as important as ever before. One can only wonder what the next 100 years of phage research will bring!

Meet the Researchers – Ricardo Costeira

12th February 2016About Remediate, Ricardo CosteiraNick Johnston

Ricardo has moved from the warmth of Portugal to the grey skies in Belfast, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting his enthusiasm:

Born and raised in the vibrant and youthful city of Braga, Portugal, I graduated from University of Minho in July 2012 with a Bachelors in Applied Biology. Soon after, I proceeded to do my Masters in that same university, graduating in January 2015 with a Masters in Molecular Genetics and a written thesis on the genomic variability of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

After almost six years studying and researching in one Portugal’s top universities, I decided it was time for a change of scenery. That is when REMEDIATE came along and took me all the way up to Northern Ireland. In October 2015 I joined Queen’s University Belfast to do my PhD, eager for exciting times experiencing new cultures and learning new concepts.

My role in REMEDIATE is of an Early Stage Researcher and my PhD path is focused on studying the microbial and viral diversity found at contaminated sites, identifying events of horizontal gene transfer mediated by bacteriophages. To do so I will be using advanced molecular biology techniques, comparative metagenomics and comparative metatranscriptomics.

Despite Belfast being a rainy and cloudy city, the locals were proven to be very warm and welcoming, making living abroad much easier than I expected. Plus, Irish folks know how to have fun and the true meaning of a good banter!

Northern Ireland is a country of exceptional beauty and I cannot wait to drive around in spring and treat my eyes to the stunning coastal landscapes.