Fabio Ceneviva Lacerda Almeida

Graduated in Pharmaceutical Science at the University of São Paulo (1988). Ph.D. in Biological Science (Biochemistry) at the University of São Paulo (1994). Post-doctoral research associate at the University of Pennsylvania (1994-1996) in the area of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of proteins. Nowadays is Associated Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), with double appointment, at the Institute of Medical Biochemistry (IBqM) and at the Center of Structural Biology and Bioimage (CENABIO). His main research is protein structure and dynamics by NMR. Has strong participation at the NMR community, being the president of the Brazilian NMR Association ("Associação de Usuário de Ressonância Mangética Nuclear" - AUREMN) from 2014 to 2018. At the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro is the Director of the Institute of Medical Biochemistry. The laboratory of Prof. Fabio C. L. Almeida (Biological NMR Lab - BioNMR) has important contribution in structural biology in solution, with emphasis in the role of dynamics in membrane and molecular recognition. It was pioneer in the solution structural determination of proteins in Brazil, solving in 2002 the structure of the plant defensins PSD1, published at the Journal of Molecular Biology. BioNMR lab has published more than 21 structures. BioNMR lab contributed to important biological problems with the structure and dynamics of proteins. It contributed to establish the role of dynamics and conformational equilibrium in molecular recognition and catalysis. The group has showed the participation of low populated conformational states, so called excited states, in membrane recognition by the defensins SD5 and Psd1, as well as the antimicrobial peptide PW2 and the VSV ifusion peptide. It also showed the participation of excited states in catalysis by thioredoxins. Nowadays, the research group is pursuing the structural determination of excited states. It has associated, at the frame of the project Science Without Borders with Prof. Dmitry Korzhnev from University of Connecticut Health Center, which has pioneered this methodology. BioNMR has several patents, along with University of Texas because of the participation in the development of an VEGF receptors inhibitor with anti-angiogenic activity. NMR was essential in this development. (Source: Lattes Curriculum)