Romana Santos on the program “Talk to me about Science”
MARE researcher Romana Santos was the most recent guest on the “Fala-me de Ciência” program, where she spoke about her research into bioadhesives for medical applications. 
“We in my group study marine organisms, in particular animals that live in a very challenging area, which is the intertidal zone. And these animals, throughout evolution, have had to develop a way of attaching themselves and not being swept away by the waves,” the researcher begins. “We now know that all these organisms have developed biological adhesives. That is, adhesives that are made up of various types of molecules, mainly proteins and sugars, but which have very special properties that are different from synthetic adhesives.” These properties include the fact that they are biocompatible, biodegradable and, unlike synthetic adhesives, work very well in the presence of water and salts.
Romana Santos has been studying these properties and their possible applications since the beginning of her career. “I started studying these biological adhesives, I thought it would be very interesting, because for many biomedical and biotechnological applications there is the presence of physiological fluids, which also have water and salts, and in which we can't use synthetic adhesives, because they, despite having great adhesion strength when dry, don't have it in humid or aqueous environments,” says the researcher.
The MARE researcher is also the founder of the BioMimetx project, with the aim of establishing the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon as a reference in the study of protein conformation and applying this knowledge to the study of neurodegenerative diseases. “The aim is that by funding networking activities, training activities and the exchange of researchers, we in the Faculty of Sciences can acquire knowledge and become an analytical reference, so to speak, for the study of proteins.”
This project focuses mainly on the study of proteins with the ability to aggregate, a common factor between neurodegenerative diseases and bioadhesives. “In nature there are proteins which, due to their structure, have a propensity to form aggregates, and these aggregates are well known in neurodegenerative diseases, because they are responsible for these diseases, so in this case they have a harmful function,” explains the researcher. “What's interesting is that there is increasing evidence that in nature sometimes this aggregation can even be beneficial. And in the case of bioadhesives it is, because this aggregation is exactly what enables a bioadhesive that is produced by a marine organism,” she concludes.
Fala-me de Ciência is HiSeedTech's podcast about science for you, broadcast on Rádio Portalegre every two weeks.
To access the episode click HERE