Fly Facility

The mission of the Fly Facility is to fully support research conducted at NOVA Medical School using Drosophila melanogaster (popularly known as the fruit fly) as an animal model.
The Facility promotes good scientific practices and ensures the well-being of both animals and users, thereby supporting high-rigor scientific research practiced at NOVA Medical School. Additionally, the Fly Facility provides research support through training for new users, technical assistance for scientific projects, and efficient management of equipment and materials. The Facility also strives to facilitate scientific interaction among different research groups at NOVA Medical School and other institutions, as well as to promote and disseminate scientific advances made with the fruit fly to the general public.

EQUIPMENTS

Fly Room:

  • Bench space for up to 20 researchers
  • 8 CO2 stations installed, equipped with 5 scopes
  • 3 dissecting scopes available with no CO2
  • 5 controlled environment chambers with regulated temperature and humidity: two set at 18°C, two at 25°C, and one at 29°C. Moreover, there is one chamber with temperature control adjustable, with no humidity, to any desired setting upon request
  • 2 stations equipped with fluorescence microscopes, each connected to a computer and supplied with CO2
  • 2 injectors for transgenics
  • 1 water bath for heat-shocking flies
  • 1 upright freezer
  • 1 mini refrigerator
  • 1 computer accessible to all researchers for conducting research, checking central stocks, updating tables, etc.


Fly Quarantine:

  • a dedicated room used for quarantining flies upon their arrival at NOVA Medical School
  • 1 scope without CO2
  • space to store newly arrived NMS stocks and a separate space for storing stocks contaminated with mites.

 

SERVICES

A variety of technical services and scientific advisory (internal and external), including animal quarantine, collecting fly virgin, stock maintenance, genetic crosses and cages setup for experiments.
Management and maintenance of over 4,500 different Drosophila lines.

Other services:

  • Disease Biomarker Screening Using Drosophila Models
    Drosophila melanogaster is a genetically tractable and cost-effective model. This service would focus on identifying novel biomarkers for human diseases (e.g., neurodegenerative, metabolic, oncological) through molecular and behavioral phenotyping of flies exposed to environmental factors or genetically modified to mimic human pathologies.
    The speed and scalability of Drosophila-based studies enable the initial validation of a large number of potential biomarkers, providing a powerful platform for early-stage discovery that can be further explored in more complex systems.
  • Preclinical Validation of Therapeutic Targets and Compounds in Drosophila Disease Models
    Drosophila melanogaster can be used to mimic a wide range of human pathologies. This service would provide initial validation of molecular targets and screening of pharmacological compounds in Drosophila models of diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer, offering proof-of-concept data before advancing to mammalian models.
    By enabling early-stage testing in a fast, scalable, and cost-effective system, this service plays a critical role in de-risking projects and accelerating the translational pipeline toward Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 5–6, bridging the gap between discovery and preclinical development.
  • Advanced Imaging and Phenotyping in Drosophila for Morphological and Behavioral Biomarkers
    This service would offer high-resolution imaging analysis to identify morphological biomarkers (e.g., neuronal alterations, organ development) and quantitative behavioral phenotyping (e.g., movement patterns, learning, and memory) in Drosophila in response to interventions or environmental factors.
    By combining precision imaging with automated behavioral analysis, this service enables the detection of subtle phenotypic changes linked to disease or environmental exposure. It provides a powerful tool for identifying and validating morphological and functional biomarkers in a high-throughput, genetically versatile model system. 

To use the Fly Facility, Drosophila researchers, including visitors, must complete a mandatory induction.

Contact the Manager at fly.facility@nms.unl.pt to schedule your induction (normally scheduled within 48 hours of the request).

The induction lasts approximately 30 minutes for users with previous experience working with fruit flies and 2 hours for inexperienced users. After induction and before beginning any work with flies, users must be officially registered as users of the Fly Facility. To do this, visit https://fcm.agendoscience.com/ and follow the instructions below:

  1. Register in Agendo – the new user must register in Agendo using the institutional email provided by the HR service or register using the institutional email from your organization.
  2. Requests – after registering on Agendo, you should click on "requests" in the menu bar on the left side and open the "Fly Facility access and services"
  3. Accepted request - the request on Agendo will only be accepted by the Facility Manager after you complete the mandatory induction.
  4. Calendars - in the menu bar on the left side you will find the “calendars” here you will find all the scopes available in the unit, which must always be reserved each time a user needs to use them

Facility Manager

Ana Raquel Machado
Fly Facility Manager