Annual Plan for Using the Institutional Technical Reserve 2021 for Research Support at FZEA/USP

• Grant number: 21/13086-7
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Technical Reserve for Institutional Research Infrastructure
• Duration: February 01, 2022 - April 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Food Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Augusto Fernandes de Oliveira
• Grantee: Carlos Augusto Fernandes de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Zootecnia e Engenharia de Alimentos (FZEA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Pirassununga , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Faculty of Animal Science and Food Engineering FZEA / USP has been experiencing large growth in recent years, from a total of 80 students in 1993 when it was founded, to the current 1,711 students (undergraduate and postgraduate), with all undergraduate classes fully implemented in 2019. This growth, while very beneficial for research, as it allows for a significant increase in critical mass, gives rise to a certain priority in resources for small infrastructure works for research development, and supporting researchers who have demands to develop their projects. It is therefore necessary to ensure that researchers who are developing these proposals the minimum necessary infrastructure conditions. Given the difficulty of doing this with the Institutional budget, this project for using the Technical Reserve portion for FAPESP's institutional infrastructure costs is of paramount importance in this current phase of growth. In this sense, the present proposal for infrastructure investment with FAPESP Institutional Technical Reserve resources was designed to support the demands of collective research infrastructure. As already commented, the Faculty of Animal Science and Food Engineering is still expanding with respect to research infrastructure, and additional resources are always welcome until all research areas are fully implemented and consolidated. In this year of 2021, we focused on requesting materials and services to implement an Analytical Core Center with a minimum of support equipment and a high-performance liquid chromatographic system with diode array detection, aiming to support the demand for a number of chemical analyses (including the detection and quantification of trace impurities, identification of compounds and development of chemometric methods) in various types of matrices that are subject of research at FZEA/USP, such as food, feed, clinical samples, etc. It is expected that this Analytical Core Center will be continuously improved over the next few years, with the inclusion of new equipment that will expand the analytical solutions to be offered to researchers at FZEA/USP. Considering the inexistence of a suitable building already available for the installation of this Analytical Core Center in the Campus, we chose to purchase 3 containers to be mounted in a strategic area of FZEA/USP, to assembly the sections of the new Center.In adition to the Analytical Core Central, a lower portion of the FAPESP Institutional Technical Reserve resources will be used for maintenance of laboratory equipment and for thermal improvement of muti-user research environments, including the puchase of ar conditioners. (AU)