On September 20, an new laboratory was officially inaugurated as part of the project ERA|ARE - A New ERA for Environmental Risk Assessment: Chirality as a Tool to Promote Environmentally Safe Drugs. The project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and led by Rita Lado, a Principal Investigator from LSRE-LCM/ALiCE.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by notable figures, including Rui Calçada, Director of FEUP, Fernando Pereira, Director of DEQ, Arminda Alves, Coordinator of AliCE, Joaquim Faria, Coordinator of LSRE-LCM, as well as national members of the ERA|ARE Advisory Board.

The inauguration was also attended by the dedicated project team, who were instrumental in setting up the laboratory from scratch.

The ERA-ARE project aims to revolutionize environmental risk assessment by leveraging chirality to ensure the development of environmentally safe pharmaceuticals. The research line, led by Ana Rita Lado, focuses on understanding the role of enantioselective environmental processes in the behaviour of chiral antibiotics present in residual amounts in the environment. The results of this project will help to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance by providing innovative guidelines for assessing the environmental risk of chiral antibiotics and encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to research drugs that are safer for the environment.

The 9^th European Nanoporous Materials Institute of Excellence Workshop took place from 12 to 13 September 2024 at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, in Porto. European Nanoporous Materials Institute of Excellence (ENMIX) members and invited participants attended the event organized by Professor Fernando Pereira (local organizer) and Elias Klemm (CEO of ENMIX) with the support of LSRE-LCM/ALiCE and SPQ.

ENMIX, established in 2009, is a scientific network dedicated to the advancement of nanoporous materials, uniting expertise in areas such as material synthesis, characterization, and applications. A key focus of ENMIX is fostering the development of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers by facilitating the exchange of knowledge, methods, and materials. To this end, ENMIX Workshops and ENMIX Young Scientist Meetings play a vital role in achieving ENMIX’s mission.

Under the theme “Advanced Nanoporous Materials for Industrial Leadership,” 9^th ENMIX Workshop aimed to highlight the latest scientific achievements from the participating research groups and strengthen collaborations among ENMIX partners.

The 9^th ENMIX Workshop featured three plenary sessions with world-renowned researchers: João Rocha from CICECO/University of Aveiro, Eleni Iliopoulou from CPERI/CERTH, Thessaloniki, and Atsushi Urakawa from TU Delft; and two invited talks: Alexandre Ferreira from the University of Porto and Petar Djinovic from the National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana.

Additionally, the 11^th ENMIX Young Scientist Meeting, organized by Charlotte Simms (University of Antwerp), José Luis del Río Rodríguez (Instituto de Tecnología Química, Universitat Politècnica de València) and Aljaž Škrjanc (National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia), also took place on September 11, 2024, at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.