Latin American Microscopists - Brazil

Brazil

Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, and is historically one of the countries in the region with among the largest investments in science and technology. Equally, according to the UN environment program, Brazil tops the list of megadiverse countries, hosting up to 20% of the world’s biological diversity. Over the past few decades, Brazil has been a hotspot for research on biodiversity and climate, infectious diseases, and ecology among others.

Amongst its institutes dedicated to research, are the prestigious University of São Paulo, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, and the Instituto Carlos Chagas, among others. Brazil hosts major institutes dedicated to microscopy, among them the CENABIO, and the Herta Meyer Institute.

Brazilian biologists who hold a unique place in the history of microscopy and/or infectious diseases include Carlos Chagas (who discovered Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi), and Oswaldo Cruz (a physician dedicated to public health and epidemiology). Major funding has allowed many Brazilian researchers to collaborate internationally, both at home and abroad.

In this blog we hear from Brazilian microscopists both at home and abroad, who have made distinguished contributions to microscopy in the context of infectious diseases.

An interview with Carolina Catta-Preta

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 17 May 2022

Carolina Catta-Preta is currently a postdoc at Dr. David Sacks’ lab at the NIH (Bethesda, USA), where she is investigating Leishmania interactions with its insect vector, the sandfly. She started her career in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 at Carlos Chagas Filho Institute (UFRJ), in the Hertha Meyer lab under the supervision of Dr.

An interview with Kildare Miranda

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 10 May 2022

Kildare Miranda is the director of the Advanced Microscopy Unit and vice-director of the National Centre for Structural Biology and Bioimaging (CENABIO), Professor of Biophysics and Cell Biology and Head of the Cell Biology and Parasitology Department of the Biophysics Institute at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and holds several CNPq fellowships. He

An interview with Moara Lemos

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 3 May 2022

Moara Lemos is currently a permanent researcher at Institut Pasteur in France, where she has helped establish cryo-correlative light and electron microscopy and cellular cryo-tomography for different biological systems. She began her career (BSc and MSc) at the Federal University of Juiz de For a, working on trypanosomes of wild animals. She later did her

An interview with Marcel Cunha

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 26 April 2022

Marcel Cunha is currently an adjunct professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He started his career during a BSc degree in Microbiology and Immunology at UFRJ. He then joined Instituto de Biofisica Carlos Chagas Filho (UFRJ) to do his MSc and PhD studies. Later he did his postdoc in Institut Curie

An interview with Aline Araujo

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 19 April 2022

Aline Araujo Alves is a postdoctoral fellow at Institut Pasteur in the lab of Philippe Bastin since 2020. She has previously worked as a visiting scientist at University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University. Her research has mostly focused on Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei cell biology. Aline did her BSc in biology at the

An interview with Victor Midlej

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 12 April 2022

Dr. Victor Midlej is a group leader at Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, working at the interface of microscopy and parasitology, focusing on cell biology, ultrastructure and chemotherapy. He has worked as a microscopist since early in his studies in 2003. Victor began his career (MSc and PhD) at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, in

An interview with Lia Medeiros

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 5 April 2022

Lia Medeiros is an associate staff scientist at Carlos Chagas Institute, Fiocruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil), and is head of the Electron Microscopy Facility at the same institution. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her Ph.D. research involved the ultrastructural characterization of the interactions between Plasmodium parasites and

An interview with Rogerio Amino

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 29 March 2022

Rogerio Amino is a group leader at Institut Pasteur, France, since 2015. He started his academic career as a teacher of robotics. He did his early studies at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, under the supervision of Prof. Sergio Schenkman. He later moved to France, at Institut Pasteur, to work with Prof. Freddy Frischknecht,

An interview with Erica Martins Duarte

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 22 March 2022

Erica Martins-Duarte currently acts as Adjunct Professor at the Department of Parasitology of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, where she develops projects focused on the discovery of new treatments for acute and chronic toxoplasmosis, characterization of drug resistance in atypical Brazilian isolates, and the impact of the infection by atypical isolates of Toxoplasma gondii

An interview with Leandro Lemgruber

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 15 March 2022

Leandro Lemgruber is the facility manager of the Glasgow University Imaging facility in Scotland, UK, and has been in this role since 2015. He has worked in several capacities as a microscopist in Brazil, Italy, Germany, the USA and the UK. Leandro began his work in microscopy and parasitology since his undergraduate degree. He did