Docente
Marta Martins

Resume

Marta Martins has accomplished her Biochemistry degree in 2005, attributed by the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, Portugal. In the same year, Marta successfully obtained a fellowship from the French Minister of Science to initiate her PhD degree at the University of Paris VII - Denis Diderot, France, in the field of Protein Engineering, Function and Structure. Her PhD degree was successfully completed with honours at the end of 2008, after several publications in peer-review journals and participation in a book chapter. Beginning of 2009, Marta started her first postdoctoral position, funded by Cancer Research UK, in the laboratory of Dr. Matilda Katan at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, which later moved to University College London (UCL). At Dr. Katan Laboratory, Marta studied the role of phospholipase C (PLC) family of enzymes on cancer development. Her efforts gave rise to two first author publications in Journal of Cell Science and in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and several collaborative works, including one publication in New England Journal of Medicine. During her stay in London, Marta has also lectured Cellular and Molecular Biology, and Lab Techniques of Mammalian Cell Biology at UCL. To continue developing her independent projects about the role of PLCs in human cancers, Marta Martins moved to Portugal in 2014 and integrated the laboratory of Translational Oncology headed by Prof. Luís Costa at Instituto de Medicina Molecular (IMM) in Lisbon. Over this period, Marta was awarded a research grant in 2013 (EXPL/BIM-ONC/1048/2013) and an Investigador FCT Contract (IF/00409/2014) in 2014 from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT). Marta was further awarded of a Terry Fox grant from Liga Portuguesa Contra o Cancro and a Merit Award from Grupo de Investigação em Cancro Digestivo (GICD)/Bayer in 2015. After being the mother of two children (2015 and 2021), the first of which a premature born at 29 weeks, which necessarily forced her to step back from research for several months, Marta´s commitment and resilience resulted in a manuscript published at Clinical Cancer Research (IF: 13.8, doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-21-1992, 2022). Marta is the last and corresponding author of this work that reports the relevance of PLCy1 in resistance to anti-EGFR therapy cetuximab in colorectal cancer (CRC). Importantly, in 2022 Marta was also the co-last and co-corresponding author of a manuscript showing the relevance of a natural compound named deflamin on CRC development and progression published at Cancers (IF: 6.639, doi: 10.3390/cancers14246182, 2022), and the co-first author of a work reporting the genetic and microenvironmental intra-tumor heterogeneity of CRC published at Communications Biology (IF: 6.548, doi:10.1038/s42003-022-03884-x, 2022). Overall, Marta Martins has a record of more than 34 peer-reviewed publications (20 of which published in the last 5 years), 1300 citations and an h-index of 17 (by Scopus), contributing as a supervisor and/or examiner in more than 14 PhD/Master thesis. Already in 2023, Marta was awarded the Liga Portuguesa contra o Cancro grant in CRC - João & Natália to continue her work about PLCy1 and cetuximab resistance in CRC. Marta is now a Professor of Oncobiology at Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa, and Biochemistry at Universidade Lusófona and is a guest editor at Frontiers in Oncology, Biomedicines and Cancers. Finally, during the years Marta has acquired a vast portfolio of national and international collaborators (such as Prof. Fernanda Marques from Instituto Superior Tecnico; Prof. Ricardo Ferreira Instituto Superior de Agronomia; Prof. Matilda Katan from UCL; and Dr. Isaac Garcia-Murillas from ICR) who will be important supporters of her future scientific career.

Graus

• Ensino secundário
  Ciências
• Doctorat
  Structure, Function and Engineering of Proteins
• Licenciatura
  Biochemistry
• Postgraduate Certificate
  Personal Licence for Scientific Procedures in Living Animals
• Curso de Especialização Tecnológica
  Personal Licence for Scientific Procedures in Living Animals
• Curso de Especialização Tecnológica
  Course on Laboratory Animal Science for Functions A + B +C.

Publicações

Journal issue

• Altered Expression of Proteins in Cancer: Function and Potential Therapeutic Targets

Journal article

• 2023-08-02, Breast Sarcomas, Phyllodes Tumors, and Desmoid Tumors: Turning the Magnifying Glass on Rare and Aggressive Entities, Cancers
• 2023-01-16, Identification of biomarkers predictive of metastasis development in early-stage colorectal cancer using network-based regularization, BMC Bioinformatics
• 2022-12-14, Therapeutic Potential of Deflamin against Colorectal Cancer Development and Progression, Cancers
• 2022-12-06, Comprehensive Genomic Profiling of Cell-Free Circulating Tumor DNA Detects Response to Ribociclib Plus Letrozole in a Patient with Metastatic Breast Cancer, Biomolecules
• 2022-09-09, Genetic and microenvironmental intra-tumor heterogeneity impacts colorectal cancer evolution and metastatic development, Communications Biology
• 2022-07-27, Kidney Cancer Biomarker Selection Using Regularized Survival Models, Cells
• 2022-06-27, Broad Spectrum Functional Activity of Structurally Related Monoanionic Au(III) Bis(Dithiolene) Complexes, International Journal of Molecular Sciences
• 2022-01-03, Predictive and therapeutic implications of a novel PLCg1/SHP2-driven mechanism of cetuximab resistance in metastatic colorectal cancer., Clinical Cancer Research
• 2021-02-15, HERVs establish a distinct molecular subtype in stage II/III colorectal cancer with poor outcome, npj Genomic Medicine
• 2020-11-10, TCox: Correlation-Based Regularization Applied to Colorectal Cancer Survival Data, Biomedicines
• 2020-06, Biological properties of a new mixed lanthanide(III) complex incorporating a dypiridinium ylide, Inorganica Chimica Acta
• 2020-02, Frequent and Persistent PLCG1 Mutations in Sézary Cells Directly Enhance PLCg1 Activity and Stimulate NFkB, AP-1, and NFAT Signaling, Journal of Investigative Dermatology
• 2020-01, On the path to gold: Monoanionic Au bisdithiolate complexes with antimicrobial and antitumor activities, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry
• 2019-10-24, Antitumour and Toxicity Evaluation of a Ru(II)-Cyclopentadienyl Complex in a Prostate Cancer Model by Imaging Tools, Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry
• 2019-09, Exploring the cytotoxic activity of new phenanthroline salicylaldimine Zn(II) complexes, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry
• 2019-02-02, Alzheimer’s disease phospholipase C-gamma-2 (PLCG2) protective variant is a functional hypermorph, Alzheimer's Research & Therapy
• 2018-12-14, Novel PLCG2 Mutation in a Patient With APLAID and Cutis Laxa, Frontiers in Immunology
• 2018-07, Dynamic Allostery in PLCg1 and Its Modulation by a Cancer Mutation Revealed by MD Simulation and NMR, Biophysical Journal
• 2014-03-03, Tumor suppressor role of phospholipase C  in Ras-triggered cancers, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• 2012-10, A Hypermorphic Missense Mutation in PLCG2 , Encoding Phospholipase C¿2, Causes a Dominantly Inherited Autoinflammatory Disease with Immunodeficiency, The American Journal of Human Genetics
• 2012-09-19, Activity of PLC  contributes to chemotaxis of fibroblasts towards PDGF, Journal of Cell Science
• 2012, Structural and functional integration of the PLCg interaction domains critical for regulatory mechanisms and signaling deregulation, Structure
• 2012, Cold urticaria, immunodeficiency, and autoimmunity related to PLCG2 deletions, New England Journal of Medicine
• 2010-07, Insights into the Phylogeny or Arylamine N-Acetyltransferases in Fungi, Journal of Molecular Evolution
• 2009-05-05, An Acetyltransferase Conferring Tolerance to Toxic Aromatic Amine Chemicals, Journal of Biological Chemistry
• 2009-02-10, Human arylamine N-acetyltransferase 1 (NAT1) as a target of chemotherapeutic drugs in breast cancer: cisplatin as a model, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology
• 2008-11, Functional and Structural Characterization of the Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase from the Opportunistic Pathogen Nocardia farcinica, Journal of Molecular Biology
• 2008-02-29, Identification of the Xenobiotic-Metabolizing Enzyme Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase 1 as a New Target of Cisplatin in Breast Cancer Cells: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Inhibition, Molecular Pharmacology
• 2007-09-19, Crystallization and preliminary X-ray characterization of arylamineN-acetyltransferase C (BanatC) fromBacillus anthracis, Acta Crystallographica Section F Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications
• 2007-09, The conserved glycine/alanine residue of the active-site loop containing the putative acetylCoA-binding motif is essential for the overall structural integrity of Mesorhizobium loti arylamine N-acetyltransferase 1, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
• 2007-06, Cloning and Molecular Characterization of Three ArylamineN-Acetyltransferase Genes fromBacillus anthracis:  Identification of Unusual Enzymatic Properties and Their Contribution to Sulfamethoxazole Resistance†, Biochemistry

Thesis / Dissertation

• 2008-12-15, PhD, Characterization of arylamine N-acetyltransferases enzymes from Podospora anserina filamentous fungus and Nocardia farcinica bacterium: Environmental and Therapeutic Implication

Book chapter

• 2020, Landscape of current targeted therapies for advanced colorectal cancer, Colorectal Cancer, Intechopen
• 2018, Anti-EGFR Therapy to Treat Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Not for All, Targeted Therapy of Colorectal Cancer Subtypes, Springer International Publishing
• 2011, Pesticide-Derived Aromatic Amines and Their Biotransformation, Pesticides in the Modern World - Pests Control and Pesticides Exposure and Toxicity Assessment, InTech

Conference abstract

• 2021-02-15, Abstract PS17-37: Immune cell populations in peripheral blood of metastatic breast cancer patients under CDK4/6 inhibitors, San Antonio Breast Cancer Virtual Symposium
• 2019-10, Microsatellite instability testing and lynch syndrome screening for colorectal cancer patients through tumour sequencing

Conference poster

• 2025-03-26, Developing Genomic Models to Predict Breast Cancer Metastatic Progression, Bioinformatics Open Days 2025
• 2021-11-22, Biomarker selection in survival colorectal cancer data using correlation based regularization., EMBL Conference Cancer Genomics
• 2021, Prospective analysis of immune cell populations in peripheral blood of Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients reveals selective T cell subset biases., ASCO
• 2020-11-19, LIQUID BIOPSY DETECTS THERAPY RESPONSE IN ADVANCED BREAST CANCER, EACR
• 2019-03-03, P-208 Prognostic evaluation of pro-peptides from collagen type III (PRO-C3) and collagen type VI (PRO-C6) formation in patients with early and late stage colorectal cancer (CRC), EACR-AACR-ASPIC
• 2019, Transcriptomic analysis of colorectal tumoral and normal tissues: comparison of TCGA and GTEx RNAseq data, EMBO workshop 2019
• 2018, PO-358 CELF2 at the core of a prognostic alternative splicing signature in colorectal cancer
• 2018, Expression and function of genetic variants of phospholipase c gamma2, a possible target for modulating microglial function in Alzheimer´s disease., EMBO workshop in microglia 2018- Germany
• 2017, Role of PLCg1 in the Resistance Mechanism to Anti-EGFR Therapy in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer, 24th Porto Cancer Meeting: Liquid Biopsy: Bringing Precision Medicine Closer to Oncology, Lisboa, Portugal May 2017
• 2007, Cloning and functional characterization of two arylamine N-acetyltransferases genes in the soil fungus Podospora anserina., 32e FEBS Congress, « Molecular Machines », Vienna, Austria