The influence of ionic liquids in model proteins under native and amyloid-like conditions: a spectroscopic study

• Grant number: 16/01608-0
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: June 05, 2016
• End date: June 19, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biophysics - Molecular Biophysics
• Principal Investigator: Leandro Ramos Souza Barbosa
• Grantee: Leandro Ramos Souza Barbosa
• Visiting researcher: Juan M. Ruso Beiras
• Visiting researcher institution: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago (USC), Spain
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims at financing the scientific visit of prof. Juan M. Ruso, from Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain, to Brazil for a period of 15 days. In his visit, Prof. Ruso will actively participate in scientific discussions with me, some of my own and from others supervisors' students as well as with other researchers from our Institute. In particular we will discuss the work that we are developing here in Brazil, where we study the influence of different ionic liquids in tertiary and secondary structure of model proteins and also its influence over the amyloid fiber formation process. Importantly, these projects are subjects of a regular current research project (2015/15822-1) and a project that ended in 2015 (2012/01953-9), both under my coordination and supported by FAPESP. Each of these projects is related to a research topic of a master-graduate thesis, under my guidance. The first is part of the master's project of Miss. Juliana Raw and the second one part of the master thesis of Miss. Sara Martins. In addition, Prof. Ruso has great expertise in the study of the interaction of small molecules with model proteins, as we can appreciate in his CV (attached to this proposal). Finally, it is also important to note that we will have also SAXS measurements to be performed at the National Synchrotron Light Laboratory, LNLS, in Campinas on 9 and 10 June 2016. In addition to all points presented above, prof. Ruso will give two seminars here in IFUSP. The first focus for undergraduate and graduate students: Complexation between biopolymers and small molecules: At the crossroads of physics and biology (see summary in Annex I of the research project) and a second one on another line of research that prof. Juan is currently developing: Biomimetic strategies for the synthesis of mineralized collagen templates for bone regeneration. (See summary in Annex II of the research project). Although this information also appears in the documents submitted together with this submission, Prof. Juan M. Ruso has more than 110 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and about 2200 citations (according to the database: Google Scholar) and a h-index of 27. (AU)