Personal identification

Full name

Pedro Pacheco Cunha

Citation names

• Pedro P. Cunha

Author identifiers

Ciência ID

861B-C9D3-9F08

ORCID iD

0000-0002-3814-6289

Email addresses

• pedrocunha@cnc.uc.pt (Professional)
• pedrocunha37@gmail.com (Personal)

Knowledge fields

• Medical and Health Sciences - Basic Medicine - Immunology

Languages

Language	Speaking	Reading	Writing	Listening	Peer-review
English	Proficiency (C2)	Proficiency (C2)	Proficiency (C2)	Proficiency (C2)	Proficiency (C2)
Portuguese (Mother tongue)

	Degree	Classification
2017 - 2022 Concluded	Development, Physiology and Neuroscience (Doctor of Philosophy) University of Cambridge Queens' College, United Kingdom "The role of hypoxia in T cell function and immunotherapy" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
2013 - 2015 Concluded	Biologia Celular e Molecular (Mestrado integrado) Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal "On the development of a novel targeted miRNA-based therapy towards glioblastoma" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	19
2010 - 2013 Concluded	Bioquímica (Licenciatura) Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal	16

Science

	Category Host institution	Employer
2023/03/29 - Current	Postdoc (Research)	Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
	Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Inovação em Biomedicina e Biotecnologia, Portugal
2022/04 - 2023/01/31	Contracted Researcher (Research)	University of Cambridge Queens' College, United Kingdom
2022/03 - 2022/12	Visiting Researcher (Research)	Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
2016/07 - 2017/08	Contracted Researcher (Research)	Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Inovação em Biomedicina e Biotecnologia, Portugal

Others

	Category Host institution	Employer
2017/09 - 2022/03	PhD student	University of Cambridge Queens' College, United Kingdom
2014/08 - 2016/08	Master Student	Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Inovação em Biomedicina e Biotecnologia, Portugal
2012/01 - 2014/06	Bachelor Student	Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Inovação em Biomedicina e Biotecnologia, Portugal

Grant

	Designation	Funders
2023/02/14 - Current	CInTech: Technological Hub for Innovation, Translation and Industrialization of Complex Injectable Drugs C644865576-00000005 Post-doc Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Inovação em Biomedicina e Biotecnologia, Portugal	Ongoing
2022/04 - 2022/12	Hypoxia, HIF function and immunotherapy CAN2018/808 Invited Scientist Fellow Karolinska Institutet, Sweden	Cancerfonden Ongoing
2017/09 - 2022/12	Oxygen and the immune response 214283/Z/18/Z Research Fellow University of Cambridge Queens' College, United Kingdom	Wellcome Foundation Ltd Ongoing
2017 - 2022	The role of hypoxia in T cell function and Imunotherapy SFRH/BD/115612/2016 PhD Student Fellow University of Cambridge Queens' College, United Kingdom	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Concluded
2017/01 - 2017/08	Differentiation therapy toward glioblastoma stem-like cells POCI-01-0145- FEDER-016390 Research Fellow Universidade de Coimbra Centro de Inovação em Biomedicina e Biotecnologia, Portugal	Autoridade de Gestão do Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização Concluded

Publications

Book chapter	Cardoso, A.M.; Guedes, J.R.; Cardoso, A.L.; Morais, C.; Cunha, P.; Viegas, A.T.; Costa, R.; Jurado, A.; Pedroso de Lima, M.C.. "Recent Trends in Nanotechnology Toward CNS Diseases: Lipid-Based Nanoparticles and Exosomes for Targeted Therapeutic Delivery". 1-40. 2016. 10.1016/bs.irn.2016.05.002
Conference poster	Morais, Catarina; Cunha, Pedro; Cardoso, A.M.; et al. "Membrane perturbations induced by acylated S4(13)-PV analogs: relevance to nucleic acid delivery". Paper presented in 34th European Peptide Symposium, 2016. Cunha, Pedro; Costa, Pedro; Costa, Raquel; Custódia, Carlos; Branco, Ruben; Morais, Catarina; Cardoso, A.M.; et al. "MicroRNA modulation renders glioblastoma cells sensitive to chemotherapy". Paper presented in 49th Annual Scientific Meeting of the European Society for Clinical Investigation, 2015. Cunha, Pedro; Costa, Raquel; Costa, Pedro; Cardoso, A.M.; et al. "A promising targeted strategy to overcome drug-resistance in glioblastoma". Paper presented in EMBO workshop: Modern DNA concepts and tools for safe gene transfer and modification, 2015. Cunha, Pedro; Costa, Pedro; Costa, Raquel; Branco, Ruben; Morais, Catarina; Cardoso, A.M.; et al. "MicroRNA-21 and micro RNA-128 modulation sensitizes glioblastoma cells to sunitinib treatement". Paper presented in XVIII Congress of the Portuguese Biochemical Society, 2014.
Journal article	Iosifina P. Foskolou; Pedro P. Cunha; Elena Sánchez-López; Eleanor A. Minogue; Benoît P. Nicolet; Aurélie Guislain; Christian Jorgensen; et al. "The two enantiomers of 2-hydroxyglutarate differentially regulate cytotoxic T cell function". Cell Reports (2023): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113013. 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113013 Eleanor Minogue; Pedro P. Cunha; Brennan Wadsworth; Guinevere L. Grice; shiv kumar Sah-Teli; Rob Hughes; David Bargiela; et al. "Glutarate regulates T cell metabolism and anti-tumour immunity". Nature Metabolism (2023): http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42255-023-00855-2. 10.1038/s42255-023-00855-2 Pedro P Cunha; Eleanor Minogue; Lena CM Krause; Rita M Hess; David Bargiela; Brennan J Wadsworth; Laura Barbieri; et al. "Oxygen levels at the time of activation determine T cell persistence and immunotherapeutic efficacy". eLife (2023): https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84280. 10.7554/eLife.84280 Laura Barbieri; Pedro Veliça; Paulo A. Gameiro; Pedro P. Cunha; Iosifina P. Foskolou; Eric Rullman; David Bargiela; Randall S. Johnson; Helene Rundqvist. "Lactate exposure shapes the metabolic and transcriptomic profile of CD8+ T cells". Frontiers in Immunology 14 (2023): http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1101433. 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1101433 Pedro P. Cunha; David Bargiela; Eleanor Minogue; Lena C.M. Krause; Laura Barbieri; Carolin Brombach; Milos Gojkovic; et al. "Infiltration of tumors is regulated by T cell-intrinsic nitric oxide synthesis". Cancer Immunology Research (2022): https://doi.org/10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-22-0387. 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-22-0387 David Bargiela; Pedro P. Cunha; Pedro Veliça; Iosifina P. Foskolou; Laura Barbieri; Helene Rundqvist; Randall S. Johnson. "Vitamin B6 Metabolism Determines T Cell Anti-Tumor Responses". Frontiers in Immunology 13 (2022): http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.837669. 10.3389/fimmu.2022.837669 Gojkovic, M.; Cunha, P.P.; Darmasaputra, G.S.; Barbieri, L.; Rundqvist, H.; Veliça, P.; Johnson, R.S.. "Oxygen-Mediated Suppression of CD8+ T Cell Proliferation by Macrophages: Role of Pharmacological Inhibitors of HIF Degradation". Frontiers in Immunology 12 (2021): http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85107036662&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.3389/fimmu.2021.633586 Cardoso, A.M.; Morais, C.M.; Pena, F.; Marante, T.; Cunha, P.P.; Jurado, A.S.; Pedroso de Lima, M.C.. "Differentiation of glioblastoma stem cells promoted by miR-128 or miR-302a overexpression enhances senescence-associated cytotoxicity of axitinib". Human Molecular Genetics 30 3-4 (2021): 160-171. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85106069155&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1093/hmg/ddab011 Matuleviciute, R.; Cunha, P.P.; Johnson, R.S.; Foskolou, I.P.. "Oxygen regulation of TET enzymes". FEBS Journal (2021): http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85099991597&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1111/febs.15695 Veliça, P.; Cunha, P.P.; Vojnovic, N.; Foskolou, I.P.; Bargiela, D.; Gojkovic, M.; Rundqvist, H.; Johnson, R.S.. "Modified hypoxia-inducible factor expression in CD8þ T cells increases antitumor efficacy". Cancer Immunology Research 9 4 (2021): 401-414. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85104428121&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-20-0561 Iosifina P. Foskolou; Laura Barbieri; Aude Vernet; David Bargiela; Pedro P. Cunha; Pedro Velica; Eunyeong Suh; et al. "The S enantiomer of 2-hydroxyglutarate increases central memory CD8 populations and improves CAR-T therapy outcome". Blood Advances (2020): https://doi.org/10.1182/bloodadvances.2020002309. 10.1182/bloodadvances.2020002309 Cunha, Pedro. "miRNA-31 Improves Cognition and Abolishes Amyloid-ß Pathology by Targeting APP and BACE1 in an Animal Model of Alzheimer’s Disease". Molecular Therapy - Nucleic Acids (2020): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.omtn.2020.01.010. 10.1016/j.omtn.2020.01.010 Catarina M Morais; Pedro P Cunha; Tânia Melo; Ana M Cardoso; Pedro Domingues; M Rosário Domingues; Maria C Pedroso de Lima; Amália S Jurado. "Glucosylceramide synthase silencing combined with the receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib as a new multimodal strategy for glioblastoma". Human Molecular Genetics (2019): https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddz152. 10.1093/hmg/ddz152 Morais, C.M.; Cardoso, A.M.; Cunha, P.P.; Aguiar, L.; Vale, N.; Lage, E.; Pinheiro, M.; et al. "Acylation of the S413-PV cell-penetrating peptide as a means of enhancing its capacity to mediate nucleic acid delivery: Relevance of peptide/lipid interactions". Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Biomembranes 1860 12 (2018): 2619-2634. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85054439165&partnerID=MN8TOARS. 10.1016/j.bbamem.2018.10.002 Pedro P Cunha; Pedro M Costa; Catarina M Morais; Inês R Lopes; Ana M Cardoso; Ana L Cardoso; Miguel Mano; Amália S Jurado; Maria C Pedroso de Lima. "High-throughput screening uncovers miRNAs enhancing glioblastoma cell susceptibility to tyrosine kinase inhibitors". Human Molecular Genetics 26 22 (2017): 4375-4387. https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddx323. 10.1093/hmg/ddx323 Cunha, Pedro. "MiRNA-21 silencing mediated by tumor-targeted nanoparticles combined with sunitinib: A new multimodal gene therapy approach for glioblastoma". Journal of Controlled Release (2015): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168365915002205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2015.04.002
Preprint	Brennan J Wadsworth; Marina Leiwe; Eleanor A Minogue; Pedro P Cunha; Viktor Engman; Carolin Brombach; Christos Asvestis; et al. "A 2-Hydroxybutyrate- mediated feedback loop regulates muscular fatigue". 2023. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.16.562554. 10.7554/eLife.92707.1 Rundqvist, H.; Veliça, P.; Barbieri, L.; Gameiro, P.A.; Cunha, P.P.; Gojkovic, M.; Bargiela, D.; et al. "Lactate potentiates differentiation and expansion of cytotoxic T cells". 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/571745. 10.1101/571745

Other

Other output

Modified Hypoxia Inducible Factor expression in CD8+ T cells increases anti-tumor efficacy. 2020. Pedro Veliça; Pedro Pacheco Cunha; Nikola Vojnovic; Iosifina Petrina Foskolou; David Bargiela; Milos Gojkovic; Helene Rundqvist; Randall Scott Johnson. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.18.159137. 10.1101/2020.06.18.159137

Award

2021	Best Poster Award
2014	Best Poster Award

Other distinction

2017	PhD research studentship Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal