| Grant number: | 15/01001-6 |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral |
| Start date: | April 01, 2015 |
| End date: | March 31, 2019 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology |
| Agreement: | National Institutes of Health (NIH) |
| Principal Investigator: | Mônica Tallarico Pupo |
| Grantee: | Weilan Gomes da Paixão Melo |
| Host Institution: | Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas de Ribeirão Preto (FCFRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil |
| Associated research grant: | 13/50954-0 - Novel therapeutic agents from the bacterial symbionts of Brazilian invertebrates, AP.BTA.TEM |
| Associated scholarship(s): | 16/17614-0 - Genomic analysis of Pseudonocardia and diversity of antibiotic-producing Actinobacteria associated with fungus-growing ants, BE.EP.PD |
Abstract Natural products have provided valuable leads for drug design and development, and it is recognized that bacteria from Streptomycetaceae and Pseudonocardiaceae families are among the most prolific producers of natural products that have been developed into drugs. However, pharmaceutical companies have deemphasized their natural products discovery programs in the last decades. At the same time, a lower productivity in the development of new therapeutic agents for infectious diseases has been faced by those industries. Recently, Currie (AP3) and Clardy (AP5), co-investigators of this ICBG, have demonstrated that symbiotic bacteria are prolific sources of bioactive natural products used by their eukaryotic hosts as chemical defenses, revealing a new biological niche for natural products prospecting. There are numerous underexplored eukaryotic-bacterial symbiotic systems to be investigated for discovering potentially useful natural products for therapeutic development. Social insects (e.g., ants, termites, bees and wasps) are diverse and ecologically dominant taxa in tropical ecosystems and appear to host a number of bacterial symbionts. However, studies of natural products involved in these symbiotic relationships have been limited or nonexistent in Brazil. This project aims to isolate and identify bacterial symbionts from farming ants collected in Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga and Cerrado. (AU) | |
| News published in Agência FAPESP Newsletter about the scholarship: | |
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