Tiago Fleming Outeiro was born on June 10^th of 1976, which he says is a real honor since it is the Portugal’s day so he has the luxury of always having a holiday to celebrate his birthday.

His research is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms leading to the development of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease. The ultimate goal of his work is to contribute for the development of novel therapeutics for these devastating disorders, which affect an ever growing number of people, due to the rapid overall aging of the human population. He employs sophisticated microscopy techniques, which enable the visualization, in vivo, of the molecular events underlying neuronal death, characteristic of all these diseases.

Currently he is at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND) of the Harvard Medical School, in Boston. He is a research fellow at Harvard, and he is also a founder of “BioEpi, Clinical and Translational Research Center”, a company currently located at the Tagus Park, in Lisbon.

BioEpi does clinical research in the fields of rheumatoid arthritis and neurodegenerative diseases, namely Parkinson’s disease. The goal of the company is to explore the great potential that Portugal has in terms of clinical research and clinical trials to contribute to the well being of the general public. For this, key partnerships with American Universities, Portuguese Hospitals and Research Institutes are being developed with the goal of conducting translational research.

Tiago Fleming Outeiro has a degree in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Porto (FCUP). He finished his degree at the University of Leeds in the UK where he was an Erasmus student, and next he started his PhD at the University of Chicago.

After two years into the PhD program his supervisor moved her lab to the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and he finished his PhD there.

He then worked as a consultant and research scientist at the start up company FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company that started based on research from his PhD. He helped transfer the technology into the Cambridge-based company so they could continue their research programs. Next he started his postdoct, at Harvard, where he, presently, still is.

He went to the US with the desire to learn among the best. Tiago Outeiro says, “We all hear about the quality of the science done in the US, and that was something that had always fascinated me. I felt it would be important for my career to go abroad, to interact with different people, to grow also as a person. I guess I was also influenced by the “American dream”, and I wanted to experience it myself”.

He knew he wanted to study diseases associated to proteins that suffer changes in their shapes, by reasons not fully understood. When he started his PhD there was a huge controversy because of mad cow disease in the UK and other European countries. These diseases are caused by an unconventional agent, called a prion, which is basically a protein which adopts a different shape and is capable of transmitting information to other proteins through that altered shape.

This phenomenon was fascinating to him at the time, and because he wanted to understand which factors influenced proteins so they became “infectious”, he looked for research groups working in this area. He found one, which, was extremely popular for the high level research done at that time, and he decided to be pro-active, and take chances, since, basically, he had nothing to loose, so he contacted this group by sending an email to the Professor he wanted to work with – Susan Lindquist (who was, at the time, at the University of Chicago) -, and asked whether it would be possible for him to come work with them.

For his surprise, he got an email back a few hours later saying she would consider him to work in her lab. This happened while he was still in Leeds, thinking about his future, so then he got in touch with some of his professors at the Faculty of Sciences, FCUP, including Maria Joao Saraiva, who supported him throughout the whole process.

 He got a fellowship from the Foundation for Science and Technology and then he went to Chicago, to be a PhD student with Susan Lindquist. It was extremely important for him to have the support of his country, through this fellowship. Tiago Outeiro says, “For the lab, accepting students with their own financial support it means they get a “free pair of hands”. For us, students, it means we get a great opportunity to work and learn with the best scientists. It’s a win-win situation, and Portugal is, ultimately, the main winner”.

His work consisted of utilizing the simple organism yeast as a model for studying neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease. This is one of the most powerful model organisms available in the laboratory, and he used it to learn about the basic cellular mechanisms involved on those diseases.

From his PhD he has seven papers published, of which three were as a first author. He has also written a book chapter, and he has two/three more papers to be written and published. In addition his PhD work has resulted in several patents licensed by the biotech company FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, in the US. Currently he has four more papers published, and he will be submitting two more in the near future.

Tiago Outeiro thinks that interacting with different people, in different institutions, is something of extremely importance for the scientific development. He says it is essential to move around to be exposed to different ways of thinking, different people, different realities, because science is all about perseverance and connections. Until now, he has been at five different institutions, and he has collaborated with numerous scientists throughout the US and Europe. Basically every time he had finished a degree, he moved and he thinks he has had the luck to be in the right place at the right time, like for example when he had the opportunity to move from the University of Chicago to MIT during his PhD.

Currently he is not completely independent yet, even though he has his own funding from the Massachusetts Biotech Research Corporation. He has been involved in getting funding from other agencies, such as the American Parkinson’s Disease Association and the NIH, also in the US. He has had a few students under his supervision, which is something he really enjoys because he thinks it is wonderful to help people develop and become good scientists. At the moment he is co-supervising a PhD student at the University of Minho, in Portugal.

His long term goal is to contribute for the development of Science in Portugal, by bringing his experience and desire to excel. He has been in some research institutes he considers great examples of how to do science, because not only they conduct amazing research but also are great examples of how science can be close to the general public, both beneficiating from this interaction. He would like to, one day, be able to incorporate some of those ideas in the institutions he works at.

His dream is to contribute for helping all the patients and families who suffer from devastating diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson. He feels it is important for basic researchers, to keep in mind they are not just “playing” in the laboratory, that there are people suffering out there, and it is their duty to use the public money towards bettering their lives.

Tiago Outeiro thinks he is still not that well known, and feels that still has a lot to prove and to show. Although he says, “If I have to think of something I can be known for is for developing the first yeast model for Parkinson’s disease, contributing for the understanding of what some of the cellular pathways involved might be”.

He has had invitations to go back to Portugal, and he is actually in the process of negotiating his return and deciding where he will go next. There has been interest by several Universities, which is very rewarding for him. The conditions offered are a start up package that includes laboratory space and some money for setting up the laboratory and doing some work. But the truth is this money is 10 to 15 times less than that offered by American Universities and research in Portugal is 1.5 to 2 times more expensive, as far as reagents are concerned.

“Money is a major problem for young investigators who don’t have any grants in the beginning of their careers and need to be productive at the same time, so they can continue to publish and get more funding. It’s almost like a catch 22…“, stresses Tiago Outeiro. He thinks this is one area that the governments should really dedicate more attention because it might be better to attract 500 investigators instead of 1000 and provide them with better funding so they can be competitive not only within Portugal but also in comparison to the rest of the world.

  AWARDS

He has received two Young Investigator Awards from the Gordon Research Conferences and he has received a Tosteson Award from the MBRC in the US.

touteiro at gmail.com