Susana Q. Lima is a Portuguese neuroscientist and principal investigator at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, Portugal. Her research studies neural mechanisms of sexual behavior and

mate choice Mate choice is one of the primary mechanisms under which evolution can occur. It is characterized by a "selective response by animals to particular stimuli" which can be observed as behavior.Bateson, Paul Patrick Gordon. "Mate Choice." Mate Choic ...

Early life and education

Susana Lima was born in the Azores Islands, and moved to

Northern Portugal The North Region ( pt, Região do Norte ) or Northern Portugal is the most populous region in Portugal, ahead of Lisbon, and the third most extensive by area. The region has 3,576,205 inhabitants according to the 2017 census, and its area is with ...

when she was young. She attended middle and high school near

Porto, Portugal Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

. During her last six months of university in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, Lima participated in a project abroad in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

where she studied the effect of heat shock in yeast. In 2005, Lima obtained her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

from the doctoral program in Biology and Medicine at the Gulbenkian Institute for Science. During this time, she was able to study abroad in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Memorial Sloan Kettering Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

as well as

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

under the supervision of

Gero Miesenböck Gero Andreas Miesenböck (born 15 July 1965) is an Austrian scientist. He is currently Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB) at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen C ...

. Following her Ph.D, Lima completed her postdoctoral research with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory under neuroscientist

Anthony Zador Anthony M. Zador is an American neuroscientist and the Alle Davis Harris Professor of Biology and Chair of Neuroscience at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is a co-founder, in 2004, of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience (COSYNE) confere ...

Research career

Lima completed her Ph.D. at the

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

in New York working in

’s lab. She spent five years researching and developing optogenetics, a research technique that uses light to activate a single

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. N ...

in order to study the processes activated by the neuron. Her findings, published in ''Cell'' in 2005, were the first reported use of optogenetics. Lima introduced P2X2 receptors, activated by

ATP ATP may refer to: Companies and organizations * Association of Tennis Professionals, men's professional tennis governing body * American Technical Publishers, employee-owned publishing company * ', a Danish pension * Armenia Tree Project, non ...

, into flies in order to activate specific neurons using a photosensitive form of ATP. In this way, she was able to activate a specific neuronal path that controls the mechanism by which flies jump and fly by shining a light on transgenic flies. During her postdoctoral training in Anthony Zador’s lab, Lima used optogenetic tools to develop a new method to identify neuronal subtypes

in vivo Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, and ...

on the rodent auditory cortex. This technique was called optotagging. After her accomplishments at Cold Spring Harbor, she returned to Portugal in 2008 and became part of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program. Some of her most recent research involves investigating how the brain controls sexual behavior through electrophysiology, optogenetics, anatomy and behavioral studies. Her publications include studies on prolactin’s involvement in the post-ejaculatory refractory period, how the ventromedial hypothalamus of the brain serves to control mating behavior, how sexual imprinting overrides order effects during sampling of prospective mates, and the neural circuits for reproduction. Her lab's long term goal is to test the hypothesis that mate choice has an impact on the regulation of sexual behavior.

Personal life

Soon after their marriage, Lima and her husband,

Zachary Mainen Zachary F. Mainen (born 20 February 1969, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America) is an American neuroscientist whose research focuses on the brain mechanisms of decision-making. Zachary Mainen moved to Lisbon, Portugal in 2007 and has been ...

, returned to Portugal to help start the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lima, Susana People from the Azores Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Portuguese women neuroscientists Portuguese neuroscientists