Browsing by Author "Costa, Ana Catarina"
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- Inhabiting auteur architecture: tracing the residents’ experience of Álvaro Siza’s Bouça housing estatePublication . Costa, Ana Catarina; Machado, Marta; Catrica, Paulo; Ascensão, EduardoThis paper explores what it is like to live in a celebrated buildingcreated by a renowned architect. Drawing on conceptualizations ofhome and dwelling as cultural as well as sociotechnical events, itintersects such theoretical lineages with the literature on living infamous residential buildings and asks how individual inhabitation isconstrued by residents. Based on ethnographic research at ÁlvaroSiza’s Bouça housing estate in Porto, Portugal, it shows the influ-ence on everyday life of elements such as the material value ofcelebrated housing, gentrification and architectural tourism in suchplaces, as well as of inside elements such as the experience ofresidential space conceived by a famous architect or the interactionwith ‘micro-technologies’ in the building. We argue that inhabitingauteur architecture is a multi-faceted cultural, sociotechnical andpolitical event, yet one that is reworked distinctly according to classand individual takes on the building’s social history. In doing so, thepaper’s contribution is to re-insert class back into a networked,decentred analysis of architecture in geographical studies.
- Scalable production of human mesenchymal stromal cell-derived extracellular vesicles under serum-/xeno-free conditions in a microcarrier-based bioreactor culture systemPublication . Fuzeta, Miguel de Almeida; Bernardes, Nuno; Oliveira, Filipa D.; Costa, Ana Catarina; Fernandes-Platzgummer, Ana; Farinha, José Paulo; Rodrigues, Carlos A.V.; Jung, Sunghoon; Tseng, Rong-Jeng; Milligan, William; Lee, Brian; Castanho, Miguel A. R. B.; Gaspar, Diana; Cabral, Joaquim M.S.; da Silva, Cláudia LobatoMesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) hold great promise for tissue engineering and cell-based therapies due to their multilineage differentiation potential and intrinsic immunomodulatory and trophic activities. Over the past years, increasing evidence has proposed extracellular vesicles (EVs) as mediators of many of the MSC-associated therapeutic features. EVs have emerged as mediators of intercellular communication, being associated with multiple physiological processes, but also in the pathogenesis of several diseases. EVs are derived from cell membranes, allowing high biocompatibility to target cells, while their small size makes them ideal candidates to cross biological barriers. Despite the promising potential of EVs for therapeutic applications, robust manufacturing processes that would increase the consistency and scalability of EV production are still lacking. In this work, EVs were produced by MSC isolated from different human tissue sources [bone marrow (BM), adipose tissue (AT), and umbilical cord matrix (UCM)]. A serum-/xeno-free microcarrier-based culture system was implemented in a Vertical-WheelTM bioreactor (VWBR), employing a human platelet lysate culture supplement (UltraGROTM-PURE), toward the scalable production of MSC-derived EVs (MSC-EVs). The morphology and structure of the manufactured EVs were assessed by atomic force microscopy, while EV protein markers were successfully identified in EVs by Western blot, and EV surface charge was maintained relatively constant (between −15.5 ± 1.6 mV and −19.4 ± 1.4 mV), as determined by zeta potential measurements. When compared to traditional culture systems under static conditions (T-flasks), the VWBR system allowed the production of EVs at higher concentration (i.e., EV concentration in the conditioned medium) (5.7-fold increase overall) and productivity (i.e., amount of EVs generated per cell) (3-fold increase overall). BM, AT and UCM MSC cultured in the VWBR system yielded an average of 2.8 ± 0.1 × 1011, 3.1 ± 1.3 × 1011, and 4.1 ± 1.7 × 1011 EV particles (n = 3), respectively, in a 60 mL final volume. This bioreactor system also allowed to obtain a more robust MSC-EV production, regarding their purity, compared to static culture. Overall, we demonstrate that this scalable culture system can robustly manufacture EVs from MSC derived from different tissue sources, toward the development of novel therapeutic products.
- Viver numa casa do Siza: a experiência da arquitetura de autor na Malagueira, ÉvoraPublication . Pereira, Juliana; Costa, Ana Catarina; Carmo, André; Ascensão, EduardoEste artigo retoma os estudos sobre a casa e o habitar desenvolvidos pela Antropologia e pela Arquitetura portuguesas, acrescentando-lhes um olhar vindo das geografias da arquitetura, para de seguida explorar a forma como os habitantes de edifícios de arquitetura de autor experienciam as suas casas e os seus bairros no quotidiano. Focando-se no caso do bairro da Malagueira em Évora, projetado por Álvaro Siza Vieira no final dos anos 70 para albergar populações de baixos rendimentos, mas entretanto tendo integrado uma constelação de populações mais variada, o artigo procura responder a perguntas sobre o que significa viver numa casa e num bairro projetados por um arquiteto consagrado, como se relacionam os modos de viver dentro da casa com o desenho e a estética relativamente austeras da arquitetura de Siza, e finalmente como é experienciada a relação com determinados elementos arquitetónicos que fazem a casa funcionar. Baseado em trabalho de campo etnográfico onde se usou a etnometodologia Show Us Your Home (Mostre-nos a Sua Casa), o artigo preenche a lacuna da relativa ausência de estudos sobre a experiência da arquitetura de Siza pelos seus moradores.