{"id":122607,"date":"2013-06-25T16:29:13","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T19:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=122607"},"modified":"2013-09-09T18:20:20","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T21:20:20","slug":"more-room-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/more-room-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"More room to work"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nussenzweig

Personal Archive <\/span>Nussenzweig and Zhang: a partnership with BraziliansPersonal Archive <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Towards the end of last year, Brazilian scientist Victor Nussenzweig invited Min Zhang, a biologist from China, to take part in a research project underway in S\u00e3o Paulo on enzymes that control the growth of Plasmodium, the protozoan that causes malaria. Zhang, who for five years had worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at Nussenzweig\u2019s laboratory at New York University, saw an opportunity and accepted right away. Along with Nussenzweig, he left for S\u00e3o Paulo in January, and over the course of two months worked in the laboratory of S\u00e9rgio Schenkman at the Federal University of S\u00e3o Paulo (Unifesp).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more independent when I work in Brazil,\u201d says Zhang. \u201cI met more scientists and arranged several collaboration projects.\u201d Zhang also talked about how much he liked the people, climate, food and the city of S\u00e3o Paulo itself, despite the difficulty he faced finding chemical reagents for his experiments. \u201cProgress fell short of what would have been the case in the U.S.,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMin is very likeable,\u201d says Schenkman; \u201che taught us a great deal and his work had a fantastic effect on the group.\u201d Schenkman adds that their association with Zhang changed the attitudes of students and fellow researchers alike. \u201cHis manner was that of a pragmatic professional, with a clear objective in mind,\u201d says Schenkman. \u201cIn his experiments, he knew exactly what he wanted to do and why he was doing it. The way he planned his experiments and discussed the results was different from our sciences culture. Relating to people with different cultural baggage can bring significant advances to Brazilian science.\u201d Nussenzweig and Zhang brought techniques for enzymes analysis \u2013 especially the phosphatases and kinases involved in protein synthesis \u2013 that helped identify common biochemical pathways between the Plasmodium and Trypanosoma cruzi, the protozoan responsible for Chagas disease that Schenkman had been researching.<\/p>\n

Zhang, age 33, received his undergraduate degree in chemical biology from the University of Hubei, in Wuhan, and his PhD from the University of Fudan, in Shanghai. Later, he \u201chad a number of opportunities to work in different laboratories in the U.S., but his dream was to work with Victor,\u201d says Schenkman. \u201cVictor\u2019s lab is one of the best in the world for malaria research,\u201d he adds. In Steinman\u2019s view, obtaining financing for research in this area is more difficult, especially given the global economic crisis. Research into tropical diseases, on the other hand, is increasing in importance as climate change generates more and more habitats around the world for the insects responsible for these diseases.<\/p>\n

Zhang found himself in S\u00e3o Paulo thanks to a thematic project that Nussenzweig had organized on behalf of the S\u00e3o Paulo Excellence Chairs (Spec), a FAPESP pilot program that forges collaboration projects between S\u00e3o Paulo state institutions and world-class Brazilian researchers based abroad. Nussenzweig, age 84, has lived in the U.S. since the 1960s and has been full professor at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s school of medicine since 1971. Along with his wife, Ruth, Nussenzweig became world renown for his search for vaccines and treatments against malaria (see Pesquisa FAPESP issue No. 106<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Zhang is due to return to S\u00e3o Paulo in July or perhaps December to spend another four months. \u201cSpeaking Portuguese is still a problem for me,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I plan to take a course once I\u2019m back in Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More room to work","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1204],"tags":[247],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-122607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers","tag-medicine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122607"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=122607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}