Carla Ribeiro, Principal Investigator at Amsterdam UMC, has been nominated for the TOPX Females to Follow Award. This award aims to give visibility to brilliant females in the Health & Life Sciences sector, and by doing so to inspire the next generation of women to follow in their footsteps. Following this splendid nomination, we interviewed Carla about her research field in Viral Immunity, her research group [Autophagy-directed Immunity] and the award nomination. Do you think Carla deserves to be one of the three finalists in the ‘science’ category at the TOPX Summit on September 22 in Oss? Then vote via this link before August 15.

TOPX Females to Follow Award

Before we started to dig deeper into Carla’s scientific career, we first discussed with her what the award stands for. Carla shared with us that "TOPX is a platform that aims to empower promising and ambitious women in Life Sciences. With the Females to Follow awards, TOPX aspires to honour inspiring women with remarkable careers, give visibility and celebrate their achievements in Health and Life Sciences - and by doing so inspire the next generation of women to follow in their footsteps."

Carla’s nomination

When you hear Carla talk about her work as a supervisor and inspirer, it immediately becomes clear why she is the perfect nominee for this award. With great enthusiasm, Carla shares her strong belief in institutionalizing a “pay it forward” attitude within science. “It gives me great pleasure to invest time in guiding my students, group members and colleagues throughout their careers, and to help them both thrive and strive for excellence. Supporting young scientists is crucial to forge talent diversity, as well as to elevate younger female scientists to reach the top.”

When it comes to guiding the careers of younger researchers, Carla adapts her tactics to the person she has in front of her, creating an environment in which each scientist can flourish - “Whether that is by sharing my experiences and solutions, referring them to experts to extend their network, or actively supporting them through difficult and uncertain times.”

Carla is aware of the fact that this not only benefits her team members, but that it also makes her flourish. "I am convinced that active and supportive interactions with the next generation of scientists is good for everyone: it helps me to stay open-minded and keep an up-to-date version of the current challenges and questions in science, and to enlarge my toolbox to empower ambitious young scientists."

Autophagy-directed Immunity

In Carla's group, they are investigating the building blocks needed to activate autophagy. By investigating how autophagy works during viral infections, they have discovered innovative strategies that can trigger autophagy and help destroy HIV-1. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carla's group joined forces and expanded their knowledge with collaborators. Now they have discovered drugs that not only suppress the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, but also curb the damaging inflammation caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. They are now in the process of publishing that work - so stay tuned to find out more.

Ribeiro mentions: "In addition, we are using animal-free and human-relevant models to screen autophagy-targeted, host-targeted therapeutics in the context of viral infections. We have already designed complex gut organoid systems that allowed us to identify therapeutic strategies targeting autophagy to curb ongoing HIV-1 infections and intestinal damage in gut-immune cell co-cultures. Together with a multidisciplinary international team of experts within the GUTVIBRATIONS consortium, we are developing multi-organoid systems combining the gut, brain and key immune cells to model relevant human viral diseases in increasingly complex, realistic and life-like systems."

Carla’s group: a supportive space where new ideas emerge

When we ask Carla what she is most proud of looking back on her career, it quickly becomes apparent that she excels not only as a researcher but also in the social, leadership and organizational areas. “I am very proud to have been able to build a diverse, collegial and multidisciplinary team from scratch. In the course of my career, I realized that the modern scientist has to excel in a multitude of functions: you have to be a researcher, teacher, mentor, financial manager, writer and speaker. Publishing dogma-challenging results in a top journal like Nature taught me the importance of all these skills - and also that all the late nights, brainstorming sessions and endless trial and error are worth it. I am proud that my group is now not only at the cutting-edge of science, but also a place where we can openly debate, spark new ideas and support each other to advance science.”

Challenge the status quo

What Carla struggles with most in the research world are the administrative and bureaucratic processes. “One would expect that scientific advances rely primarily on fast-track to innovation and adaptability. However, many times as our ideas emerge and results come out, I have been faced with continual administration and bureaucracy processes which didn’t match the fast and ever-expanding field of biomedical sciences. I found this especially challenging amid the COVID-19 health crisis, when the slow bureaucracy was at odds with an obvious need for targeted and timely action.” Therefore, Carla advocates at work to dare to ‘challenge the status quo’ for the benefit of scientific progress.

Why should we all vote for Carla?

"A vote for me is a vote for creating
stimulating and inclusive environments to support the next generation of biomedical scientists. I strongly believe that this is the way forward for academia, and that it is good for both science and scientists."
Carla Ribeiro
Principal Investigator

Read about Carla and the other nominees here.

You can submit your vote via this link. The deadline for voting is 15 august 2022.

Text: Esmée Vesseur