The opportunity is for the project belonging to the Institutional Research Development Plan (PDIP), whose objective will be the development of scientific and technological solutions that will provide rapid and timely responses to strengthen laboratory actions in health surveillance. Project title: “Pre-clinical study of new candidate drugs against leishmaniasis”, coordinated by Dr. Andre Gustavo Tempone.

The present proposal aims to identify an approved drug by means of the drug repositioning or synthetic active compound based in a natural prototype, which presents promising anti-Leishmania infantum activity. The investigator will initially perform in vitro phenotypic assays using the intracellular amastigote model of Leishmania infantum to determine the activity of the compounds to be tested. Studies will be carried out in different cell lines to evaluate the mammalian cytotoxicity. Cellular studies, based on flow cytometry techniques, spectrofluorimetry and transmission electron microscopy will be used to investigate the possible mechanisms of action of the most promising compounds. Finally, in vitro pharmacokinetic studies (ADME) such as solubility, membrane permeability and metabolization will be performed as initial parameters for the design of animal model efficacy studies.

Pre-requisites for the position: Doctoral degree in area related to the project based on Drug Discovery in visceral leishmaniasis or Chagas disease; project experience involving techniques of phenotypic assays (intracellular amastigotes and cytotoxicity), experience in studies of cellular action mechanism; experience in pharmacokinetic profile studies and in vivo efficacy studies. 

Candidates need to send an e-mail to the researcher Dr. Andre G. Tempone ([email protected] ), containing curriculum vitae, letters of presentation justifying the interest in the vacancy and letters of recommendation with contacts (name, institution, telephone and e-mail) of two researchers who can give information about the candidate.

The project will be funded by São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP (www.fapesp.br/en ). The vacancy is open to Brazilians and foreigners. The selected will receive FAPESP Post-Doctoral Fellowship (www.fapesp.br/en/postdoc ) in the amount of BRL7,373.10 per month and Technical Reserve. The Technical Reserve of PD Grant is equivalent to 15% of the annual value of the scholarship and is intended to meet unforeseen expenses directly related to the research activity.

More information about the fellowship is at: fapesp.br/oportunidades/2415 .

The research group Bioproducts’ Production and Purification Lab (BioPPuL), located in the Department of Bioprocesses and Biotechnology of the FCFAr of UNESP, offers a postdoctoral fellowship to develop the recombinant microorganism for the production of L-asparaginase (ASNase) and studies of its production process by submerged cultivation.

About the project

Getting older is the biggest risk factor for most fatal diseases, including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s. The advances in nanomedicine comprise the development of nanoparticles either for drug delivering or as platforms for biomolecules purification. Simultaneously, continuous progresses have been made for the development of recombinant therapeutic enzymes, namely L-asparaginase (LA), which presents antineoplastic properties for thetreatment of leukaemia’s, in particular for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). Currently, the LA available in medical applications is produced from bacteria. However, this type of LA may activate the immunological system causing human hypersensitivity reactions. Therefore, the search for novel microorganisms able to produce LA with no side effects has been the main focus of many researches.

Considering the great demand for the development of new technologies for the purification of therapeutic enzymes, still limited by their high cost, this project aims to produce recombinant LA by bacteria fermentation and to developa cost-effective and sustainable platform for the biopharmaceutical purification (downstream processing) from the fermentation broth using nanomaterials. The main goal is to obtain recoveries of LA above 90% and purity levels over 95%, with a cost reduction around 20%. A critical evaluation of the best strategies and conditions for the integrationprocesses and scale-up will be explored.

The involved research teams (CICECO, FEUP and UNESP) have shown to be successful in providing pioneering scientific results on the production of enzymes and on the development of separation and purification techniques for biopharmaceuticals. The UNESP team from Brazil will optimise noveltechniques of heterologous enzyme production by bacterial fermentation, which is generally regarded as safe (GRAS) and easy to manipulate, in order to achieve higher enzyme yields. The Portuguese teams (CICECO and FEUP) will be responsible for the preparation of functionalisation of silica and carbon nanomaterials, which will be used as an efficient and fast strategy for LA purification from the fermentation medium. NanoPurAsp aims to meet the approval of biopharmaceuticals by regulatory authorities which require effective and high quality biopharmaceuticals, i.e., no side-effects, high purity and biological activity. These can only be attained through in-depth knowledge of the products and of their manufacturing processes. The advanced research here produced will certainly allow the success of therapeutic enzymes production and its easy scalability up to industrial levels at a lower cost. The integrated process developed will have a great impact in economy with a long-term impact in human healthcare. This project aspires the optimization of resources and materials which will contribute to a greener and sustainable growth, which in turn will be a source of economic valorisation for the future industrial manufacturing.

Regarding the candidate:

– Candidate must have PhD in Biotechnology or related disciplines;
– Have completed the PhD no longer than 2 years prior to application;
– Proven international experience in groups outside the institution of origin of the doctorate;
– Excellent early achievement track record (scientific publications and /or patent deposits).

Specific Qualifications:

– Experience with Molecular Biology techniques;
– Experience with cultivation and handling of microorganisms, mainly bacteria;
– Experience with submerged cultivation;
– Desirable knowledge of bioreactors.

Applications should send the documents listed below to Prof. Dr. Valéria de Carvalho Santos Ebinuma (Principal investigator) by email: [email protected] . Deadline: 12/01/2018.

1) CV lattes updated (Brazilian) or CV with academic experience (foreigners);
2) Cover letter explaining what are the applicant’s motivations to undertake the project, as well as her/his qualification;
3) References (2 contacts).

This opportunity is open to candidates of any nationalities. The selected candidate will receive a FAPESP’s Post-Doctoral fellowship in the amount of R$ 7,373.10 monthly and a research contingency fund, equivalent to 15% of the annual value of the fellowship which should be spent in items directly related to the research activity.  

More information about the fellowship is at: fapesp.br/oportunidades/2480 .

The Laboratory of Molecular Biology from the Blood Center of Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, offers one position for a master degree student with a basic knowledge of bioinformatics. The student will be responsible for the optimization and the implementation of a pipeline for the analysis of the viral metagenome (filtering sequences, alignments, taxonomic designation, de novo genome assembly) obtained from plasma and hemoderivatives. To start the working of this project, the student will receive training by international researchers from the Pasteur Institute. The student will be supervised by Dr. Svetoslav Slavov (https://bv.fapesp.br/en/pesquisador/83362/svetoslav-nanev-slavov/ ). The scholarship and the technical reserve values are pre-establshed by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation — FAPESP.

The blood center of Ribeirão Preto is a leading research institution which is funded by FAPESP, Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development — CNPq and the Brazilian Innovation Agency — FINEP, and has an excellent infrastructure. More than 100 researchers work in the Blood Center of Ribeirão Preto in different research areas. One of the main lines of investigations includes the infectious diseases which can be transmitted via blood transfusion and the measures which can be undertaken to prevent such a process. 

Basic requirements: Linux; Program languages perl, python, and/or R; data banks; Analysis of next generation sequencing raw data is a plus. 

Those who are interested in this position, please send your CV, motivation letter and one recomendation letter of the Secretariat of Research of the Blood Center of Ribeirão Preto until 20/12/2018 ([email protected] r) mentioning the running head Mestrado_FAPESP_Slav and with a copy to [email protected] . 

More information about the fellowship is at: fapesp.br/oportunidades/2475 .