CRITICAL CARE
This group is under the direction of Profª. Maria Cristina Granja Teixeira dos Santos and comprises a total of 5 integrated members, 2 PhD students and 1 other researcher as collaborator. It incorporates researchers collaborating in several different Portuguese hospitals (e.g. Hospital São João and Centro Hospitalar do Porto) and mainly integrates members of the Porto and Algarve Medical Faculties.
CARDIOVASCULAR SCIENCES
This group is under the direction of Prof. José Carlos Silva Cardoso and comprises a total of 3 integrated members, 6 PhD students and 9 other researchers as collaborators. It includes researchers mainly from the Porto Faculty of Medicine and closely collaborates with several hospitals and other institutions (e.g. Hospital de São João, Centros Hospitalares de Gaia-Espinho, Vale do Sousa e Viseu, Aveiro University and the Portuguese Society of Cardiology).
HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT IN GASTROINTESTINAL ONCOLOGY
This group is under the direction of Prof. Mário Dinis Ribeiro and comprises a total of 4 integrated members, 7 PhD students and 1 other researcher as collaborator. This group has been delivering several outputs, putting together diverse competences and researchers, in essence as a “network” of different hospitals (particularly with the main cancer center in Portugal – Instituto Português de Oncologia – and the Hospital São João), medical schools and universities establishing further “nodes” with other R&D groups in CINTESIS, in Porto (e.g. IPATIMUP, IT), Portugal or internationally.
CLINICAL NUTRITION & DISEASE PROGRAMMING
This group is under the direction of Profª. Conceição Calhau and comprises a total of 8 integrated members, 10 PhD students and 2 other researchers as collaborators. It integrates researchers from basic and clinical sciences, mainly based on the Porto Faculty of Medicine and collaborating with several major hospitals (e.g. Hospital de São João, Centro Hospitalar do Porto and Hospitais Privados CUF).
INNOVATION & DEVELOPMENT IN NURSING
This group is under the direction of Prof. Carlos Sequeira and comprises a total of 9 integrated members, 18 PhD students and 52 other researchers as collaborators. It incorporates mainly members of the Escola Superior de Enfermagem do Porto that formed a coalition with CINTESIS to foster nursing research.
AGEING CLUSTER
This group is under the direction of Profª. Constança Paúl and includes 16 integrated researchers, 20 collaborators, and 31 PhD students. Research activities are held in health facilities, in social settings and in laboratories and teaching facilities of the Universities of Porto, Aveiro, Beira Interior and Madeira. The group is organized in 2 main research and practice areas: (1) Behavioural and Social Gerontology, focusing on ageing process and on politics, services and equipment for old people; (2) Clinical Gerontology and Geriatrics, focusing on health and family care, mental health and dementia, and on intervention programs.
PSYCHOLOGY & LONG LIVING
This group is under the direction of Prof. Carlos Silva and includes 6 integrated researchers, 4 collaborators, and 11 PhD students working at University of Aveiro. The group is involved in the fundamental and applied study of psychological processes including health promotion in the workplace, and in the study of olfaction markers of mental disorders, a research area with the potential for a major contribution in mental health, healthier working and educational environments. Research is supported by laboratory infrastructures (e.g., neuropsychology laboratory equipped with electrophysiological recording systems).
NEURONAL DEGENERATION & REGENERATION
This group is under the direction of Prof. Paulo Andrade and includes 11 integrated researchers, 1 collaborator, and 5 PhD students. Researchers have a common history of research in Centro de Morfologia Experimental (Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto) with know‑how in cellular, molecular, behavioural, cognitive and developmental neuroscience, and in in vitro studies. The research focus is on the identification and understanding of the mechanisms underlying the influence of determinants (e.g. hormones) and risk factors (e.g. alcohol consumption, nutritional factors) of ageing and disease in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Research is supported by fully equipped neuroscience, behavioural, cell cultures and stereological laboratories.
INNOVATIVE DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS
This group is under the direction of Profª. Goreti Sales and includes 5 integrated researchers, 5 collaborators and 4 PhD students. Research activities are held at the Serviço e Laboratório de Imunologia/Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto (FMUP) Research Laboratory BioMark, Sensor Research/Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP).
MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY
This group is under the direction of Profª. Cidália Pina-Vaz and includes 9 integrated researchers, 1 collaborators and 12 PhD students. Core facilities for microbiology, genomics and animal housing are available at Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto.
MEDICAL IMAGING & SIGNAL PROCESSING
This group is under the direction of Prof. António Bastos Leite and includes 3 integrated researchers, 8 collaborators and 9 PhD students. The group is hosted at the Centre for Research in Health Technologies and Information Systems (CINTESIS), Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Portugal.
THERAPEUTICS, PHARMACOVIGILANCE & HYPERTENSION DIAGNOSIS
This group is under the direction of Prof. Jorge Polónia and includes 3 integrated researchers, 6 collaborators and 6 PhD students. Research activity is held at the Department of Health Information and Decision Sciences (CIDES) and at the Centre for Research in Health Technologies and Information Systems (CINTESIS) of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto (FMUP).
BIOSTATISTICS & INTELLIGENT DATA ANALYSIS
This team has a strong record on both biostatistics and machine learning. The first goal of this group is thus to improve this record and strengthen research in these areas. The second goal of the group is therefore to look beyond traditional biostatistics into modern methods of statistical learning and intelligent data analysis, without losing the necessary formality (e.g. log-linear analysis of big data, Bayesian networks for clinical research and decision support, or information-based data analysis). Not only current graduation programmes are not prepared for this new setting but, in the health-care domain, specific features of health‑related data are not straightforward, making health data curation a research topic on its own. The holistic nature of this topic makes it a major overseeing research area of the group. The third major goal of the group is thus to assess the need and build an advanced training programme on health data analysis and curation.
HEALTH INFORMATICS
This team will focus on the tools used to record, integrate and present clinical data with a special emphasis given to the interfaces of electronic patient records, and the effectiveness of different summarization mechanisms. The Business Process Management and Performance in Healthcare team will focus on studying the optimization of healthcare information flow and the evaluation of its performance by the use of quality indicators. The Security team will focus on role‑based access control, along with data encryption and digital signing to check the integrity of patient data. The Medical Education enhanced by Innovative Technologies team will focus on studying how to integrate traditional teaching and e-learning in an effective way to teach medical students and healthcare professionals, as well as on developing simulation-based technologies to enhance teaching and training in healthcare.
EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE & RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
This is a group focused on production and synthesize of a high quality scientific evidence to make healthcare safer, higher quality, more efficacious, accessible, equitable, cost-effective and affordable, and to work with the Portuguese healthcare professionals, national authorities, policy makers and other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used.
HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT & ETHICS
This team has its specific objectives defined in the areas of Research and Development, Teaching, Sustainability, International Cooperation and Monitoring. In the Research & Development area the focus will be on the accomplishment of a high level scientific research. In the Teaching area the focus will be in the promotion of high standards in teaching of different professional groups and from different countries in accordance with the most modern strategies and pedagogic processes. The teaching should be in accordance with the research developed by the research group. In the sustainability area the focus will be to be in accordance with CINTESIS global strategy and to guarantee an adequate cost structure so that this group is financially sustainable in the long run. In the Monitoring area the focus will be the implementation of a monitoring system through the determination of a set of performance indicators that should demonstrate an annual increase of 10% of scientific production.