Entries by Roberto Berlinck

A pandemia silenciosa – texto escrito em abril de 2020

Em 1928 no Hospital Santa Maria de Londres, o biólogo, botânico, médico, microbiologista e farmacologista Alexander Fleming notou pela primeira que a bactéria patogênica Staphylococcus era inibida pelo fungo Penicillium notatum. Esta observação conduziu à descoberta da penicilina. Em 1941 começou a produção de penicilina em Londres, transferida para os EUA por causa da guerra. […]

Presentations of Undergraduate Students Projects and Results during the 30th SIICUSP

Recently the undergraduate students developing research projects in our group presented their projects and results during the SIICUSP annual meeting (Simpósio Internacional de Iniciação Científica e Tecnológica da USP – International Symposium of Technological and Scientific Initiation of the Universidade de São Paulo), between November 30th and December 1st, 2022. All presentations were in Portuguese, […]

Assignment of Absolute Configuration of Known Anthraquinones

Among the new papers published by my group this year, we reported the assignment of the absolute configuration of the known fungal anthraquinones versicolorin C and versiconol. Both compounds have been first isolated several years ago. Versicolorin C was first isolated by Hamasaki and collaborators in 1967 (Agr. Biol. Chem. 1967, 31, 11) and versiconol […]

Investigation of tetrodotoxin accumulation in the anuran Brachycephalus pitanga and its microbiome

Our latest article published in 2021 reports the investigation on the occurrence of tetrodotoxin (TTX) in the tissues of the anuran Brachycephalus pitanga and the anuran microbiome. This article results from the post-doctoral project of Dr. Luciane Alessandra Chimetto Tonon, funded by FAPESP, in collaboration with Professor Celio Haddad at the Biosciences Institute of the […]

New review in NPR – The isolation of water-soluble natural products – challenges, strategies and perspectives

This is a new review article published on line today in RSC Natural Product Reports. It was a considerable volume of work, because it results of one of my main research interests since my PhD in 1992. During my PhD at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, under the supervision of Professor Jean-Claude Braekman and of […]

Novel nonribosomal peptides modulate collective behavior in marine sponge derived Pseudovibrio bacteria

This article results from a fantastic team effort leaded by Professor Alessandra Eustaquio at the University of Illinois Chicago, along with her colleagues. Professor Alessandra was very kind in receiving my former PhD student Laura Ióca in her lab. Laura developed a project under Alessandra’s supervision, that enabled the discovery of modified peptides involved in […]

Para onde vamos?

Ao longo da história, mais de uma vez a humanidade se meteu em enrascadas ou se confrontou com problemas realmente sérios. Alguns exemplos recentes, de cerca de 100 anos ou menos, foram as Guerras Mundiais. Em sua obra de 1955 Edward M. Burns discute os eventos que levaram à 1ª Guerra Mundial com base em […]

APPROVED NEW THEMATIC GRANT FUNDED BY FAPESP

Anunciamos a aprovação pela FAPESP de financiamento de projeto temático por um período de cinco anos a partir do início de 2021, “A Função da Química na Adaptação de Holobiontes”. Um holobionte é constituído por um hospedeiro e toda a sua comunidade ecológica de micro-organismos associados. Uma característica ainda pouco compreendida é a função de […]

Ataques à ciência dão errado

A ciência é um conjunto institucionalizado de práticas de conhecimento, não um sistema filosófico. O texto a seguir é uma tradução do texto “What Attacks on Science Get Wrong – Science is an institutionalized set of knowledge practices, not a philosophical system” publicado no The Chronicle of Higher Education em 9 de dezembro de 2020, de […]

Guanidine alkaloids reverse the fluconazole resistance phenotype mediated by Pdr5p transporter on Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Five years ago, Dr. Mario F. C. Santos performed a detailed investigation of the chemistry of the marine sponge Monanchora aff. arbuscula, collected in Cabo Frio, Rio de Janeiro state. Dr. Mario isolated a series of guanidine secondary metabolites, among which batzelladine D (1) and norbatzelladine L (2) were two of the major alkaloids. This […]