USP at 80

Pesquisa FAPESPď š December of 2014

special edition . December 2014 . www.revistapesquisa.fapesp.br

USP at 80 special edition USP at 80

The power of a beautiful institutional history dedicated to the building and communication of knowledge

2窶テspecial 80 anos usp

miguel boyayan

University of São Paulo View of the Armando de Salles Oliveira (main) Campus, USP’s largest campus, in the city of São Paulo

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USP at 80 Celso Lafer, president of FAPESP

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he commemoration of USP’s 80th birthday is a good time to move beyond disheartened discussions about its problems and take a heartening look at its achievements and what they represent for São Paulo and for Brazil.

“The beginning is not merely half of the whole, but reaches as far as the end,” Polybius said. So it would be worth our while to begin with some thoughts about the project devised by the founders of USP and to frame it within its original historical circumstances. Contextually, the 1930s saw a relative decline in São Paulo’s power within the nation and its defeat in the Revolution of 1932, subsequently prompting the state to assume a posture of political accommodation vis-à-vis Pres. Getúlio Vargas, which in turn put Armando de Salles Oliveira at the helm of the state government.

It was Salles Oliveira who established USP by Decree No. 6.283, published on January 25, 1934. He drew inspiration from the ideas of Julio de Mesquita Filho, who had the support of a great educator, Fernando de Azevedo.

The goal of USP’s founders was to respond to the challenge that changes to the Brazilian status quo represented for São Paulo. Approaching the issue innovatively, they started from the determination that only through a university could São Paulo become a laboratory for scientific investigation and a beacon of high intellectual pursuit, which would set our state apart within Brazil. These were the terms underscored by the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo on January 27, 1934. In effect, what São Paulo had already accomplished through its colleges and its institutions for professional training and scientific investigation should be raised to the level of a university, as stated in the preamble to Decree No. 6.283.

Our state has always deemed knowledge critical to its development. The Campinas Institute of Agronomy was founded in 1887, the Law School in 1827, the Polytechnic School in 1894, the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture in 1901, the School of Medicine in 1913, and the first phase of the School of Pharmacy and Dentistry in 1899. All of these institutions were dedicated to the training of professionals, while research activities essentially fell into the applied category. The latter was the case with the Polytechnic School’s Center for Materials Resistance, which was established in 1899 and later became the Institute for Technological Research (IPT).

What was innovative about USP was that it did not merely combine pre-existing educational institutes but instead founded the School of Philosophy, Sciences, and Literature. Setting an example to be followed, this school introduced so-called “disinterested studies,” focused on pure science and the liberal arts. By carrying research ever farther, these studies were meant to increase knowledge and open the way for its potential application. From the very moment of USP’s inception, its motto, Scientia vinces—through science, you shall conquer—has translated what lies within the university’s DNA: a distinct awareness that it is crucial to generate knowledge through research, both to steadily renew the teaching of knowledge as well as to properly train experts and professionals in all branches of human learning.

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At the heart of the institution’s original conception, this “idea to be realized” underpins the work that has shaped USP into the great research university it is today, whose role is to advance merit and quality as the lodestars of university life in Brazil.

The University Funds that were set up at USP in 1942, as part of the Brazilian society’s contribution to World War II efforts, helped the institution deepen its genetic roots in research. These funds anticipated a feature of our contemporary world: knowledge—whether in the form of basic or applied research—engages in the “dialectics of complementarity” and transforms living conditions at a remarkable speed, making scientific and technological training a critical variable if a society is to be enabled to deal with its issues.

The University Funds experience prompted São Paulo researchers and university faculty to propose to the state Constituent Assembly that a research foundation be established; the outcome was Article 123 of the São Paulo State Constitution of 1947. This recognition of the value of research predates the creation of the federal funding agencies CNPq and Capes, launched in the 1950s, and thus affirms São Paulo’s pioneering spirit. FAPESP—the São Paulo Research Foundation—opened its doors in 1962, thanks to the vision of then-Governor Carvalho Pinto. In implementing the agency, he relied on the leadership of USP personnel, who designed it to reflect the motto Scientia vinces in all fields of knowledge. Down through the years, FAPESP has played a vital role in funding research at USP. In 2013, for instance, the university received investments of R$517 million from the Foundation.

There were other significant steps in the process of solidifying USP as a great research university: in the 1960s, an emphasis on the policy of requiring faculty to work exclusively and full-time at USP; the firm establishment of graduate programs in the 1970s; the achievement of financial autonomy in the 1980s; and the inauguration of the office of Dean of Research, under the 1988 bylaws.

As a result, USP now accounts for 22.4% of all of Brazil’s scientific production. Combined with the scholarship produced at São Paulo’s two other public state universities, Unicamp and Unesp—both by-products of USP—the state is responsible for 38% of Brazil’s scientific production.

In every reputable international ranking, USP consistently places first in Latin America and is listed among the best in the world. It stands 132 nd in the QS World University Rankings® and 77th in the Best Global Universities ranking

by U.S. News, to cite two examples.

Ever mindful of the fact that the majority of the universities ranked above USP have much longer histories—some have accumulated centuries of experience—it is clear that USP has achieved much in its 80 years. São Paulo has earned renown in Brazil, Latin America, and the world for its production of value-added knowledge, and the bulk of this added value derives from what has been accomplished at USP Article originally published in the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo on November 16, 2014

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USP makes Brazil a better country Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, FAPESP scientific director

U

SP makes Brazil a better country, and that is no small feat. What is more, in the context of higher education, it is certainly the institution that makes the greatest contribution to this national objective.

As a result of the internationalization strategy of São Paulo research, I have visited a number of foreign entities associated with research. Invariably, researchers there have already heard of USP and never fail to express great interest in joining forces and working with USP researchers. Also considerable is their interest in receiving students from the university.

With all these achievements and numerous others that are on display in this Pesquisa FAPESP supplement, it is no surprise that Brazilians and residents of São Paulo want even more from USP. After all, more and better results are always expected from those committed to excellence and capable of delivering outstanding results.

The problem is that the pressures are often antagonistic: some want more vacancies, others call for more engineers and still others demand better engineers.

Will it always be possible to offer more and better engineers? What defines a reasonable level? Some industries demand more integration with businesses while others expect more university support to unions and non-governmental organizations. Nearly all would like more patients to receive care at the university’s hospitals.

In many cases, the same people who criticize USP’s high cost also criticize the university for not appearing among the top 50 in international university rankings. They do so without realizing that at universities that normally occupy the top spots, like Berkeley, Davis or Stanford, yearly spending per professor, to use a specific rather than general indicator, is twice (Berkeley and Davis) to as much as five times as high (MIT and Stanford) as that at USP. With its potent interplay between teaching and research, a recognized driver of academic quality, USP awards more doctorates than any other university in Brazil, and in this, it is among the world’s best. Every year, USP authors publish 22% of their scientific articles with authors in Brazil, which represents more than three times the volume published by authors from UFRJ or UFMG, Brazil’s largest federal universities. It also represents a percentage twice as large as what the University of California system represents in total U.S. scientific production.

In terms of scientific impact, articles by USP authors are cited in specialized literature at rates well above the national average, approaching the global average, and in the field of physics, USP authors have largely exceeded the global average in recent years. USP graduates approximately 7,400 professionals and is responsible for 6% of all engineers awarded degrees in all 111 public universities in Brazil every year.

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The interplay with society is lively, even if it sometimes goes unnoticed within the university. USP graduates occupy positions of leadership in all areas of domestic life, whether they be politics, business, industry, agriculture, science and technology research, arts and culture, journalism, education or academia.

Five percent of all university research, an amount equal to the 2012 average reported for U.S. universities, is funded through research agreements with business entities.

What makes USP a university recognized worldwide is its historical commitment to the pursuit of academic excellence, like that seen at the world’s best universities. This pursuit is visible in every action by the university, no matter how small. It is visible in the endless discussions that precede decisions, in the changes in direction and in the standing firm, in the contradictions and in the agreements. Excellence is often a moving target that seems to change as it gets closer, much like a mirage. To those on the outside, university operations often appear chaotic and without objectives. For those in the know, however, it is easy to see that while the method appears confusing, the objectives are indeed well-defined and the results are what lead to academic progress.

The intensity of research activity, especially after establishment of the full-time dedication to teaching and research regime in the early 1960s and institutionalization of graduate studies in the late 1960s, has enabled the university to establish a rich environment of learning and teaching with strong international ties.

The system of constitutional autonomy linked to budgetary revenue from collection of the Tax on Distribution of Goods and Services (ICMS) instituted in 1989 allowed further enhancement, with an increase in the number of vacancies and enrollments, in the number of students graduating and in the high quality of research and graduate studies. Since 1989, while the number of professors has grown 6% (from 5,669 to 6,008), the number of undergraduate students has grown 82% and the number of graduate students has grown 116%. The number of students completing undergraduate programs grew 97%, and those receiving graduate degrees increased 260%! After implementation of its system of autonomy, it was as if USP had established, within itself and to the benefit of each and every SĂŁo Paulo taxpayer, the equivalent of a Unicamp or a UFMG in terms of educational and academic results, all without increasing the number of professors or employees.

In conclusion, I reiterate my original thesis. USP makes Brazil a better country. That is no small matter and is reason for celebration. Congratulations, USP. May the next 80 years be even better. pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 7

Articles 4 Celso Lafer USP at 80 6 Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz USP makes Brazil a better country

Lettter from the Editor 9 Mariluce Moura Continuities and discontinuities from the past to the present

Memory 10 Julio de Mesquita Filho,

Armando de Salles Oliveira, and Fernando de Azevedo were on the front lines of the founding of USP

SCIENCE

Technology

16 Medicine / Cardiology Pioneering advances in treatment and research have made InCor a center of reference in Latin América

54 Engineering

20 Medicine / Institutes The evolution of medical knowledge and changes in the disease profile prompted the establishment of specialized facilities

58 Agronomy ESALQ comes in fifth in international ranking of agricultural sciences institutions

24 Medicine / Basic Research Beginning in modest circumstances, biomedical science groups are now in the forefront

HUMANITIES

28 Biology / Genetics

The institutionalization of human genetics at USP has helped shape excellent research teams in the Biosciences Institute

32 Biology / Zoology Studies of vertebrates and invertebrates on land and sea aim to understand the processes of species diversification 34 Biology / Botany

Researchers study the processes of species diversification through surveys of flora

38 Exact and Earth Sciences /

Physics and Chemistry Teams work with new materials, biological molecules and clean energy generated via nuclear fusion

44 Exact and Earth Sciences /

Astronomy and Geosciences Geophysicists, geologists, geographers and astrophysicists work together to improve our understanding of the Earth’s interior, its surface, and what lies beyond

50 Oceanography New oceanographic vessel advances research on climate, ocean currents, sediments and biodiversity along the Brazilian coast Cover Photo léo ramos

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The Polytechnic School fosters technological solutions to support Brazil’s development

64 Social Sciences

A charter component of USP, the FFLCH organized and systematized the practice of research and maintains an intense dialogue with the public

68 Philosophy A disciplined analysis of textual sources has been one of the department’s hallmarks, from the time of its French founders to that of its present researchers 72 Literature The university’s contribution in fields such as literary theory and film criticism continues 76 Communications and Arts Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes is still a prominent figure in the university’s history

79 Architecture

Vilanova Artigas and Mendes da Rocha promoted the idea that cities should be more human and accessible

80 History Approaches that meld culture and politics are characteristic of the Department today 82 Archeology

Brazilians search for ancient hominids in Jordan

Letter from the Editor fundação de amparo à pesquisa do estado de são Paulo Celso Lafer Presidente Eduardo Moacyr Krieger vice-Presidente Conselho Superior alejandro szanto de toledo, Celso Lafer, Eduardo Moacyr Krieger, fernando ferreira costa, Horácio Lafer Piva, joão grandino rodas, Maria José Soares Mendes Giannini, Marilza Vieira Cunha Rudge, José de Souza Martins, Pedro Luiz Barreiros Passos, Suely Vilela Sampaio, Yoshiaki Nakano Conselho Técnico-Administrativo José Arana Varela Diretor presidente Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz Diretor Científico Joaquim J. de Camargo Engler Diretor Administrativo

issn 1519-8774

Continuities and discontinuities from the past to the present

Conselho editorial Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz (Presidente), Caio Túlio Costa, Eugênio Bucci, Fernando Reinach, José Eduardo Krieger, Luiz Davidovich, Marcelo Knobel, Marcelo Leite, Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, Marisa Lajolo, Maurício Tuffani, Mônica Teixeira comitê científico Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos (Presidente), Adolpho José Melfi, Carlos Eduardo Negrão, Douglas Eduardo Zampieri, Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques, Francisco Antônio Bezerra Coutinho, Joaquim J. de Camargo Engler, José Arana Varela, José Roberto de França Arruda, José Roberto Postali Parra, Lucio Angnes, Luis Augusto Barbosa Cortez, Marcelo Knobel, Marie-Anne Van Sluys, Mário José Abdalla Saad, Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche, Paula Montero, Roberto Marcondes Cesar Júnior, Sérgio Luiz Monteiro Salles Filho, Sérgio Robles Reis Queiroz, Wagner do Amaral Caradori, Walter Colli Coordenador científico Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos

EDIÇÃO ESPECIAL USP 80 ANOS Diretora de redação Mariluce Moura editor-chefe Neldson Marcolin Editores Carlos Fioravanti, Fabrício Marques, Marcos de Oliveira, Marcos Pivetta, Maria Guimarães, Ricardo Zorzetto; Bruno de Pierro e Dinorah Ereno (Editores-assistentes) revisão Daniel Bonomo, Margô Negro, Mauro de Barros arte Mayumi Okuyama, Marina Oruê (Editoras), Maria Cecilia Felli e Alvaro Felippe Jr. fotógrafos Eduardo Cesar, Léo Ramos Colaboradores Eduardo Nunomura, Evanildo da Silveira, Gilberto Stam, Igor Zolnerkevic, Márcio Ferrari, Peter Moon, Reinaldo José Lopes, Ricardo Aguiar, Valter Rodrigues

É proibida a reprodução total ou parcial de textos e fotos sem prévia autorização Para falar com a redação (11) 3087-4210 cartas@fapesp.br Para anunciar Midia Office - Júlio César Ferreira (11) 99222-4497 julinho@midiaoffice.com.br Classificados: (11) 3087-4212 publicidade@fapesp.br Para assinar (11) 3087-4237 assinaturaspesquisa@fapesp.br Tiragem 43.200 exemplares IMPRESSão Plural Indústria Gráfica distribuição Dinap GESTÃO ADMINISTRATIVA INSTITUTO UNIEMP PESQUISA FAPESP Rua Joaquim Antunes, no 727, 10o andar, CEP 05415-012, Pinheiros, São Paulo-SP FAPESP Rua Pio XI, no 1.500, CEP 05468-901, Alto da Lapa, São Paulo-SP Secretaria de Desenvolvimento Econômico, Ciência e Tecnologia Governo do Estado de São Paulo

Mariluce Moura, Editor in Chief

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hen it comes to USP, numbers are almost always exponential, and the articles by Professors Celso Lafer and Brito Cruz that open this special supplement commemorating the 80-year anniversary of this great university provide a clear sample in this respect. Given this, selecting a limited number of research projects more appropriate than others to shed some light on USP's scientific production over eight decades is not an easy task, and runs the risk of controversy. So, our first step was to decide that this supplement would consist of three, shall we say, obvious sections: science, technology and the humanities. From there, we decided that, to the extent possible, we would begin with important current research, whose finding are relevant now, and then look for a thread through past research until hopefully uncovering pioneering studies carried out during USP's early years. We then defined the subfields for each section and set to work.

In the end, the 80 pages of the supplement produced by the in-house team of Pesquisa FAPESP and some special contributors suggest that while the thread of continuity over time is quite visible in some subfields, such as genetics, cardiology, social sciences or philosophy, in others it seems that discontinuities better explain the high quality of contemporary studies, such as in research on hypertension or archeology. But we prefer to let readers come to their own conclusions.

Viva la USP! pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 9

The decree that established USP, as published in O Estado de S. Paulo on January 26, 1934

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MEMORY

A rocky road Julio de Mesquita Filho, Armando de Salles Oliveira and Fernando de Azevedo were on the front lines of the founding of USP

Neldson Marcolin

estadão conteúdo / ae

D

ecember 1933 was half over when educator Fernando de Azevedo met with Julio de Mesquita Filho, director of the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo. Speaking on his own behalf and that of Armando de Salles Oliveira, the interventor (federally-appointed administrator) of São Paulo State, Mesquita asked Azevedo whether he was still interested in working toward the establishment of a university. “What I was asking for at the time was not a new study about the university problem in general, but the actual decree-law that would institute the first university in São Paulo [USP],” he wrote in a two-page article for O Estado de S.Paulo on January 25, 1954. “I went right to work and in less than a week had a draft of the decree-law ready. We thought it was advisable and best from the political standpoint to submit it for evaluation by a committee, whose members would be judiciously selected, before sending it on for consideration by the state interventor, Azevedo recalled.

Members of the commission in addition to the author of the draft included professors Almeida Júnior (the Education Institute), Teodoro Ramos and Francisco Fonseca Teles (the Polytechnic School), Raul Briquet and André Dreyfus (School of Medicine), Vicente Ráo and Waldemar Ferreira (School of Law), Henrique Rocha Lima and Agesilau Bitancourt (the Biology Institute) and Julio de Mesquita Filho. After a week of debates, a few changes were made in the draft and it was sent to Salles Oliveira. As the governor had wished, the decree that established the University of São Paulo (USP) was signed on January 25, 1934, the 380th anniversary of the city of São Paulo. “He [Salles Oliveira] was willing to remove all obstacles in order to open, in São Paulo, the biggest apparatus ever assembled in Brazil to renew its culture and work toward the advancement of science,” Azevedo recalled in the article written 60 years ago.

The history of the founding of USP, seen in such a concise form, appears simple and problem-free. Of course nothing could be that easy. Establishing a university in São Paulo along the lines desired by Mesquita, Azevedo, and Salles Oliveira, its principal founders, took time and required traveling a road that presented obstacles at every turn. pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 11

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The Last Country in the Americas

Ever since the beginning of the 19th century there had been discussions and proposals about the establishment of universities. In 1823, for example, José Feliciano Fernandes Pinheiro, from Santos in the state of São Paulo, was a member of the Constituent Assembly representing the state of Rio Grande do Sul. He advocated the founding of a university in Brazil so that students would no longer have to go to Portugal to study, as Ernesto de Souza Campos wrote in his 1954 book entitled História da Universidade de São Paulo (History of the University of São Paulo), recently republished by Edusp. His argument didn’t take hold, but at least a commission was set up to propose the founding of a law school in São Paulo and another in Olinda, in Pernambuco State. Both became reality on August 11, 1827, by a decree issued by Dom Pedro I. “Brazil was the last country in the Americas to lay the foundations for education under the university regime,” Souza Campos wrote. In his study, he reports the figures on organizations of that kind as they existed at the end of the 19th century: 78 in the United States, 12 in Canada, 4 in Colombia, 4 in Bolivia, 2 in Mexico, 2 in Peru, 2 in Argentina and 1 each in Guatemala, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Cuba. The University of Bologna, in Italy, considered to be the oldest in the western world, dates from 1088 (the 11th century). The first university in Brazil was the University of Rio de Janeiro, established in 1920, followed in 1927 by the one in Minas Gerais (now the Federal University of Minas Gerais-UFMG).

The desire to have an institution of higher learning in São Paulo that would accommodate several separate colleges had always been present in the conversations that Julio de Mesquita Filho (1892-1969) had with others, such as Fernando de Azevedo (1894-1974).

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Azevedo’s 1925 book, A crise nacional (The National Crisis), addressed early on the deficiencies in all levels of Brazilian education.

Mesquita studied law at São Paulo’s Largo São Francisco School of Law. In 1915, he started his career as publisher of the evening edition of the newspaper, known as the Estadinho, which was published until 1921. He then took over as managing editor of the newspaper.

When his father, Julio de Mesquita, died in 1927, he assumed responsibility for the Estadão. His main interests besides journalism were politics, education, and science. He admired philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), and said he learned from the articles by Arnaldo Vieira de Carvalho (1867-1920), founder of the School of Medicine, and from conversations with psychiatrist Franco da Rocha (1864-1933). He was extremely active in all political movements until his death at age 77. In July 1932, he was one of the civilian leaders of the Constitutionalist Revolution against Getúlio Vargas—whom he had supported in the 1930 Revolution—calling for free elections and a new Constitution. When the São Paulo forces were defeated, Mesquita and his brother Francisco were arrested and sent into exile. They returned to Brazil in 1933, thanks to negotiations arranged by interventor Armando de Salles Oliveira (1887-1945).

Salles Oliveira’s career is unusual. He was an engineer with a degree from the Polytechnic School and a shareholder and president of the company S.A. O Estado de S. Paulo, which published the newspaper. He was also married to Raquel, a sister of Mesquita Filho.

Therefore he was aligned with the ideals of 1932, but had never held public office. “Given the tortuous paths of politics, Vargas thought it best to make amends with São Paulo. And so in 1933 he appointed Salles Oliveira as interventor,” says historian Shozo Motoyama, of the USP Interuniversity Center for the History of Science in the book USP 70 anos – imagens de uma história vivida (USP at 70 – Images of a History a Living History) (Edusp). According to the historical chronology of O Estado de S. Paulo, prepared by that newspaper and available in its online archives, the engineer Salles Oliveira accepted the post only on two conditions: that Vargas would grant the Mesquita brothers amnesty so they could return to Brazil and resume their positions at the newspaper, and that Vargas would call elections for the next year—both of these happened.

The movement in favor of the founding of the university had gained support in the decade prior to the above events. In 1926, to supplement the debates about the subject, Mesquita Filho asked Azevedo to coordinate a survey about education. Questionnaires were sent to experts in every field, people like Reynaldo Porchat, Arthur Neiva, Teodoro Ramos and Francisco de Fonseca Teles, among others. On reading the responses to the questionnaire, Mesquita saw his concerns confirmed.

“The main problem we are dealing with, problem number 1 and of primordial importance for Brazil country was, unquestionably, our higher education.”

Photos 1 Fernando de Azevedo/IEB-USP Archives 2 e 3 estadão conteúdo / ae

Fernando de Azevedo, in a photo from the 1950s: author of the draft of the decree-law that established USP and an educator who had an enormous influence throughout Brazil

Pioneering Research

Azevedo, Mesquita’s main partner in that fight, was from São Gonçalo do Sapucaí (Minas Gerais State). He had been a professor of Latin and psychology in Belo Horizonte, taught literature at the Normal School of São Paulo and educational sociology at the USP Education Institute (which was ultimately abolished) and became a full professor of sociology and anthropology at the School of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters (FFCL-USP), now the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH). In Rio, he accepted the post of director general of Public Instruction in what was then known as the Federal District, serving from 1926-1930; in 1933 he was given the same position in São Paulo. He founded and directed the publishing company Companhia Editora Nacional. In 1932, he wrote and was the first signatory of the Manifest by the Pioneers of Education (A reconstrução educacional do Brasil) (Reconstruction of Education in Brazil), which set out the guidelines and laid the foundation for a new education policy.

It is no wonder that the efforts around those topics and the dedication by Mesquita, Salles Oliveira, and Azevedo, working together, had supplied the final push toward the founding of USP in 1934 along lines different from those of the institutions of higher learning that had been operating in isolation. “All the colleges and universities established prior to the early thirties had professional objectives. None of them were exclusively intended to provide a general education and permit the pursuit of

Armando de Salles Oliveira, interventor in São Paulo (1935): working with Mesquita and Azevedo

3

systematic fashion, ‘disinterested’ and leading-edge research in Brazil,” Motoyama wrote.

It had been known since the outset that the university would be a union among the schools of law, medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry, as well as the Polytechnic School and the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture. The FFCL was established at the same time as USP. Salles Oliveira described it this way: “The grand plan for the university (…) could not be executed in a single stroke. The government had to start somewhere. So it decided to begin by immediately organizing a principal component, the FFCL, which is an essential institution in any university sysJulio de tem because it focuses on free and disinMesquita terested culture and on scientific research (…).” One of the ideas was to concentrate Filho counted in the FFCL the basic courses offered by all the other units, in order to give stueducation as dents a common foundation. That battle, however, was lost. one of Brazil’s Selected as president was Reynaldo principal Porchat (1868-1953), a former director of the School of Law, “the first and greatest problems 2 we ever had,” Azevedo wrote in 1954. To hire the professors for the FFCL, Mesquita suggested to Salles Oliveira that he designate Teodoro Ramos. Thus the first São Paulo university began with the union of traditional studies of a disinterested nature,” Heladio Cesar Goncolleges, but only a few years later it had been joined çalves Antunha explained in his thesis, written in 1971 by 13 teaching staff and talented researchers who had in order to qualify for an associate professorship at the been recruited in France, Italy, Germany and Portugal USP School of Education. It was later published in the in the fields of physics, literature, philosophy, sociology, book Universidade de São Paulo – Fundação e reforma mathematics, geology, mineralogy, chemistry, botany, (University of São Paulo – Its Founding and Reform) and zoology. The numerous successes achieved by (CRPE/MEC, 1974). The reference to “studies of a disUSP in education, research, and extension services, interested nature,” means basic science as contrasted 80 years later, are more than ample proof that those with the more utilitarian and practical applied science. who fought for its creation were right. n “USP stood out as a pioneer in that it introduced, in a pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 13

Scien The 1965 identification of molecules that increase the action of bradykine in the venom of jararacas is today one of the most important discoveries made by USP researchers

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eduardo cesar

nce pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 15

MEDICINE / CARDIOLOGYa

Excellence in the heart Peter Moon

Bosom buddy: pediatric artificial ventricle developed at InCor

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Pioneering advances in treatment and research have made InCor a center of reference in Latin America

n the basement of the Heart Institute (InCor), in Pinheiros, São Paulo State, there is a laboratory with simulators, presses and other machines—some heavy, others of high precision.

It is here that some Brazilian versions of an artificial ventricle are being produced on an experimental scale. The ventricle consists of a small chamber made of a synthetic polymer, divided in two by an impermeable membrane.

Connected to the heart via cannulas during surgery, the artificial ventricle helps to pump blood when heart function is greatly compromised. The latest model produced at InCor is a pediatric version of the ventricle, which is able to pump 15 milliliters of blood per beat. It was designed to be implanted in children who have only a few months to live and require circulatory support while awaiting a heart transplant. Today children who need this type of device are underserved in Brazil. The imported versions are very expensive. The first was approved by the health authorities in the United States in 2011 and costs about $100,000, a price that makes using it practi-

LéO RAMOS

I

pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 17

cally impossible for the Brazilian pub- gist and former director of InCor. “The the institution in which it originated, lic health system. “The scientific and implant is meant to keep the patient alive the University of São Paulo School of technological challenges encountered in while waiting for a donor.”

Medicine (FMUSP). Built in 1912, over these types of projects, associated with In 1993, Dr. Stolf, at InCor, performed 100 years after the founding of surgery the specifics of the market, hinder its the first implantation of an artificial ven- schools in the states of Bahia and Rio development by the domestic industry tricle in Latin America, in a procedure de Janeiro by Dom João VI (John VI of here,” says Idágene Cestari, director of that has been repeated one to three times Portugal), what was known as the São InCor’s Biomedical Technology Center, a year. In the U.S. there are about 2,000 Paulo School of Medicine and Surgery who came up with the idea of devel- such procedures every year. The only went on to take the lead in medical inoping a pediatric ventricle in Brazil a reason the surgery is not more wide- struction and research in Brazil. number of years ago, when an artifi- spread is because of the high cost of Its founder and first director, Arnaldo cial ventricle for adults imported ventricles. “The Vieira de Carvalho (1867-1920), followed was tested in Germaequipment itself costs the model of the most advanced mediny. “Our ventricle was $100,000, and because of cal schools of the time, which combined specifically developed taxes here, each import- treatment with medical research. From with Brazil’s Unified During the ed unit ends up costing at the beginning, the School introduced the Health System (SUS) least $300,000,” says Dr. most modern techniques, assimilated by Revolution of in mind,” she says.

Stolf. Making an artificial professors and students during overseas The InCor pediatventricle in Brazil would study trips. Funding for construction 1932, physicians mean reducing the cost of of the building that would house the ric ventricle has been implanted in pigs and and medical this surgery.

School (opened in 1931), the purchase sheep in partnership “The use of this form of of equipment, collections of books and with the pediatric sur- students support is increasing; to- periodicals for the library, and the first gical team led by Marday about 40% of patients scholarships for Brazilian physicians to celo Jatene and will improvised use an artificial ventricle study in the United States came from the be clinically evaluated before transplantation,” Rockefeller Foundation. The counterpart hospitals on after approval by the says Dr. Fábio Jatene, cur- to this funding would be the construcBrazilian Health Sur- the frontlines rent director of InCor. “We tion, by the government of São Paulo, of veillance Agency (ANdecided to use our own a hospital to serve the people.

VISA). The pediatric technology to begin to deBetween the opening of the FMUSP version, evolved from velop the simplest models, headquarters and that of Hospital das a previous model, pumps 60 milliliters of to be used for just a matter of weeks.”

Clínicas (HC), in 1944, professors and blood per beat. It was developed by Instudents experienced their baptism by Cor and approved for experimental use PIONEERING ADVANCES fire. Within three months of the Conin adults. A pilot batch is ready for evalu- The development of artificial ventricles stitutionalist Revolution of 1932, when ation by six Brazilian hospitals in 2015. is part of the pioneering work of the sur- the people of São Paulo rebelled against geons and engineers of InCor. A pioneer- the government of Getúlio Vargas, phying ethic, incidentally, is one of the main sicians and students improvised field PREVENTABLE DEATHS InCor researchers have been pursuing characteristics of both the institute and hospitals on the frontlines against the the goal of building a Brazilian artificial ventricle for at least 20 years. More than 70,000 heart surgeries (such as coronary bypasses) are performed every year in Brazil, including 15,000 pacemaker implants and 300 heart transplants. These are impressive numbers, but not enough.

Today 300,000 Brazilians die each year from heart disease. A great many of these deaths could be prevented with increased use of diagnostic tests and preventive measures. For patients who are lucky enough to receive an early diagnosis, the risk is in the time spent waiting in line for a heart transplant. Many die while waiting for a compatible donor and would be more likely to survive if they could get an artificial ventricle. “An artificial ventricle is indicated for patients with severe heart failure,” says Dr. Noedir Stolf, a cardiolo- Construction of the main building of the USP School of Medicine in 1920 18 SPECIAL USP AT 80

Photos Museum collection of the USP School of Medicine

geries and patient survival increased.

The first successful liver transplant in Brazil took place only in 1985 when the team led by Dr. Silvano Raia at FMUSP was able to prolong the patient’s life for 18 months. Three years later his team would perform the first donor transplantation: a mother donated one-third of her liver to her daughter.

After mastering transplant techniques, surgeons began to focus more on the problem of organ rejection. In 1985, Dr. Jorge Kalil Filho set up the Immunology Laboratory of FMUSP, which contributed to the body of research on the surface molecules of the endothelial cells involved in rejection.

In the case of the coronary bypass, the challenge involved increasing the First class: students in 1914 and Arnaldo Vieira de Carvalho, first row, fifth person seated from the right durability of a saphenous vein before it had to be replaced in the patient. The Vargas forces coming from the states of diac Clinical Center, which in 1963 was vein is a specialized vessel for the transRio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Paraná. renamed the Institute of Cardiopulmo- port of small volumes of blood under The surgeries and other treatments per- nary Diseases. The goal of the restructur- low pressure. Changes in conditions formed on the wounded under adverse ing was to increase the financial capac- cause excessive thickening of the inconditions were valuable lessons learned ity and build a headquarters site, which nermost layer of cells, accelerating the accumulation of fat defor the purposes of organization of the opened in 1975. posits, which obstruct School, which has always maintained a 10% of the bypasses in strong tradition in surgery. Among sur- TRANSPLANTS less than a decade. geons trained at the School, a key figure Meanwhile, its cardioloA method to reduce or was Euryclides de Jesus Zerbini (1912- gists continued to inno- After prevent premature clog1993), head of the former Cardiac Clinic vate. The next step was ging of these vessels has Center of USP’s Hospital das Clínicas, to perform transplants. mastering to be found. Dr. José the birthplace of InCor. In December 1967, South transplants, the yet Eduardo Krieger and his The first heart surgery to use cardio- African physician Christeam at InCor’s Laborapulmonary bypass in the world was per- tiaan Barnard performed effort to get tory of Genetics and Moformed in the United States in 1953. In the first human-to-hulecular Cardiology have Brazil, Dr. Hugo Felipozzi (1923-2004) man heart transplant more organs been studying this pheperformed this procedure in 1956 at the in history. Six months nomenon since 2004.

Santa Casa de São Paulo Hospital. That later Dr. Zerbini per- and reduce They are simulating the same year, Dr. Zerbini and his students formed the same feat rejection problem in rats whose Adib Jatene (1929-2014) and Delmont in Latin America. That carotid artery blood flow Bittencourt (1921-1991) went to the Unit- same year, Dr. Adib Ja- began is partially diverted to ed States to study the most advanced tene’s team would perthe jugular vein. In the techniques. Upon his return, Dr. Zerbini form the first myocardial walls of the veins, the inperformed the first ever heart surgery at revascularization operaUSP’s medical school and hospital. “Drs. tion, the coronary artery bypass, at the creased pressure activates genes that are Bittencourt and Jatene came back with Instituto Dante Pazzanese de Cardio- more active in the arteries, which favor the thickening of the vessel walls. This the idea of setting up a workshop in the logia in São Paulo. hospital’s basement to make heart valves Then in 1968, a team led by Dr. Mar- is a sign that the vein is trying to adapt and clamps for use in surgery,” says Dr. cel Machado performed Brazil’s first to the new conditions. The problem is Stolf. One of the main projects was build- liver transplant at Hospital das Clínicas. that in many cases the adaptation gets ing a heart-lung machine.

The patient survived one week. There out of control and causes clogging. Such The advances in cardiac surgery at were four more attempts before 1974. conditions favor the development of Hospital das Clínicas made it a center for From the beginning, rejection of the atherosclerosis. The experimental rat excellence in Brazil and Latin America. implanted organ and the lack of donors model corresponds to what is seen in The increasing numbers of patients, stu- were the major impediments. With the bypass patients. Dr. Krieger’s team is dents and visitors from other countries introduction of immunosuppressives trying to develop gene therapies to renecessitated its move from the old Car- abroad, the rejection rate fell in sur- verse the situation. n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 19

Medicine / Institutes

The impact of growth The evolution of medical knowledge and changes in the disease profile prompted the establishment of specialized facilities Ricardo Aguiar

L

ithium, a substance that has been used to treat bipolar disorder for decades, may play an important role in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Headed by researchers Wagner Gattaz and Orestes Forlenza, the Neuroscience Laboratory at the Psychiatry Institute (IPq), which is part of the University of São Paulo (USP), has recently shown that lithium may attenuate the evolution of AD. A study of elderly patients with bipolar disorder, which is a serious mental illness associated with a high risk of developing dementia, has shown that the prolonged use of lithium affords protection against such an outcome.

“For patients treated with lithium, the risk of developing AD was five times lower than for those who were not,” says Gattaz. “Their risk went back to roughly the same level as the risk for people who don’t have bipolar disorder. Add-

20 SPECIAL USP AT 80

ing small amounts of lithium to the water supply may help in the prevention and treatment of mental illnesses, including AD.” In addition to investigating the neuroprotective role of lithium, Gattaz is also studying schizophrenia. Years ago, his group detected some 300 genetic mutations that might lead to development of the disorder. According to the psychiatrist, these data have brought a more realistic understanding of the disease.

The IPq has also contributed to the understanding and treatment of other mental disorders, like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The group led by Euripedes Constantino Miguel used neuroimaging techniques to find evidence that different forms of treatment—like cognitive behavioral therapy and the use of antidepressants—have distinct and complementary effects on the brain. Another finding was that the results of treatment with

T Architectural sketch of the USP Psychiatry Institute building

medication and with psychotherapy are similar. What matters most, according to the researchers, is that the treatment be continuous. By tracking 158 people with OCD for two years, it became clear that the longer the treatment, the more their symptoms receded.

Image FMUSP Historical Museum Collection

The mind

In addition to producing world-class scientific research, the IPq has also been praised for its patient care. In 2014, it became the first psychiatric hospital in Brazil to receive certification from Brazil’s National Accrediting Organization, in recognition of the excellent quality of its services.

The IPq traces its roots to Juqueri Psychiatric Hospital, founded and directed

by Francisco Franco da Rocha in the late nineteenth century. The University of São Paulo School of Medicine (FMUSP) gave some of its courses in psychiatry there.

Rocha’s successor was Antonio Carlos Pacheco e Silva, who took over the hospital in 1923. With the collaboration of Benedito Montenegro, then director of FMUSP, and Jorge Americano, university president, Pacheco e Silva convinced the state government to construct the building that now serves as IPq headquarters.

When the IPq was instituted as a modern university psychiatric center in 1952, Pacheco e Silva overcame prejudice and brought serious cases of mental disorder closer to the general hospital. The facility was governed by Pacheco e Silva’s belief that psychiatry should be grounded

not only on descriptive diagnoses but also on knowledge and research of the brain’s organic and biochemical properties. The hospital model was quite different at that time, based on lengthy inpatient stays for those with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and manicdepressive psychosis. The range of treatment options was relatively limited.

Thanks to the development of psychopharmacology and biological psychiatry, shifts occurred in the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to mental disorders and also in the focus of research. The IPq now treats a wide array of disorders, such as those involving mood, anxiety, eating, sleep, and sexuality. Moreover, the specificity of treatment for each problem is much greater. pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 21

Inpatient stays are also not as lengthy and efforts are made to link hospitalization to outpatient treatment.

The institute’s research lines are broad in scope, heterogeneous, and respect the complexity of the phenomena associated with mental illness. This includes recognizing the biological, psychological, and social aspects that must be taken into account within the specific framework of each phase of life.

B

Children

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C

Each point in the image represents a clump of proteins in the brain of someone with schizophrenia: schizophrenics produce more of the proteins identified by the letter ‘s’

One of the institute’s distinguishing features is that it has specialists in 17 medical areas, all trained in pediatrics. “This means our patients are always cared for by pediatricians,” Carneiro-Sampaio adds.

The facility also has a children’s surgery service, founded by Virgílio Carvalho Pinto in the 1960s. Its emphasis has been on the correction of complex congenital malformations of the digestive, urinary, and respiratory systems as well as on procedures to separate conjoined twins. The experiences of this group, currently coordinated by Uenis Tannuri, have helped transform the ICr into Brazil’s leading center for organ and tissue transplants in children.

One of the projects now underway at the ICr, in collaboration with the Heart Institute (InCor), involves DiGeorge syndrome, a serious genetic disorder that affects one in every 4,000 newborns. Along with congenital heart defects, these children present defects of the thymus, an organ essential to the development of the immunological system. “The thymus is an organ that has been greatly overlooked in research,” says CarneiroSampaio. “We are working to improve our understanding of how this organ functions in children and to raise pediatricians’ awareness of the diseases associated with it.” To this end, the ICr proposed that November 22 be declared DiGeorge Syndrome Day, because the

disorder is the result of a microdeletion on chromosome 22 at position 22q11.2.

The ICr is also concerned with early prevention of chronic illnesses that appear only in adults or the elderly, like osteoporosis. It is possible to learn from family history whether a child has a risk of developing the disease, which usually only appears after the sixth decade of life. Children and adolescents at risk can thus be counseled to follow eating and lifestyle habits intended to forestall the problem in the future.

Quality of care is one of the hallmarks of the ICr, and the Child-Friendly Diagnosis program is an example of this.

Launched in 2012, the program aims to reduce the amount of blood drawn from children for test purposes, children’s exposure to exams that use ionizing radiation, and orders for anesthesia. “We want the institute to be cutting-edge in research but without neglecting the safety and well-being of our patients and their families,” says Carneiro-Sampaio.

Rehabilitation

A fundamental part of the treatment of many syndromes, including those seen at the ICr, is rehabilitation. DiGeorge syndrome, for instance, causes speech problems that can be ameliorated with suitable treatment. Providing rehabilitation for patients with different medical conditions and conducting research

Image Daniel Martins-de-Souza / Instituto Max Planck Photo nancy kedersha / imunogen / spl

While the IPq changed and evolved in step with changes in medicine and society, the same is true of the Children’s Institute (ICr). Founded in 1976, the ICr traces its roots to the Department of Internal Medicine’s Pediatrics Service, then headed by Antonio de Barros Ulhoa Cintra, one of the founders of FAPESP and a former USP president. Eduardo Marcondes, then chief of the Pediatrics Service at the Hospital das Clínicas, is considered the principal founder of the ICr. In its first years, the ICr primarily treated cases of diarrhea and malnutrition, which were the main causes of infant mortality at that time. In the 1970s, this rate stood at around 60 to 80 deaths per thousand live births in Brazil. The 1980s saw advances in the treatment of dehydration caused by acute diarrhea through the contributions of Giuseppe Sperotto, of the ICr. Although Brazil’s infant mortality rates are still higher than those of other countries, the figure had dropped to 15 deaths per 1,000 births by 2013. Today, infant deaths in the first year of life are chiefly a consequence of perinatal conditions, birth defects, and chromosomal abnormalities. In keeping with changes in the profile of childhood illnesses, the focal point of care and research at the ICr is currently on patients with serious, complex, and rare diseases (rare diseases are those affecting one in every 2,000 people). “This shift in focus was a deliberate decision by the ICr in recent years,” says pediatrician Magda Carneiro-Sampaio, current chair of the facility’s board of directors.

During the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the ICr was the birthplace of almost every pediatric specialty in Brazil, and it became the only service in Brazil designed to care for children and adolescents with hard-to-diagnose diseases.

are the goals of the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (IMREA).

Initiatives centered on physical medicine and rehabilitation began with the foundation of the National Rehabilitation Institute (Inar) in 1958. In its earliest days, Inar offered rehabilitation services primarily to the victims of car accidents, which were frequent at that time. Since 2000, IMREA has been strengthening its role as a rehabilitation facility that places priority on caring for patients with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, and disabling pain, as well as for amputees.

The institute’s lines of research revolve around neuromotor evaluation and control. For example, studies assess new approaches to rehabilitation and investigate the biological mechanisms involved in this process. This research led to the establishment of the Center for Advanced Studies in Brain Injuries, motivated by the hypothesis that a better understanding of brain plasticity and of new rehabilitation technologies will result in better treatment.

The IMREA is also part of the Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics, which is

committed to disseminating evaluation and intervention techniques and systems in the area of rehabilitation and to establishing tighter controls in clinical trials.

“In this sense, if we know the best protocol for each patient, we’ll be able to make his treatment more effective,” says Linamara Battistella, coordinator of IMREA’s Center for Clinical Trials.

Cancer

The youngest of FMUSP’s eight institutes is the São Paulo State Cancer Institute (Icesp), which opened its doors in May 2008. Giovanni Guido Cerri, full professor of radiology, coordinated implementation of the institute and took the positions of director general and chair of its board.

The field of oncology had actually emerged earlier at FMUSP, in 1981, when Ricardo Brentani became the first professor of an oncology class at a Brazilian university. Two years later, he also became director of São Paulo’s Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, then operating out of the former A.C. Camargo Hospital, which became affiliated with the University of São Paulo in the 1990s.

Now as the A.C. Camargo Cancer Cen-

Tumor cells (orange) occupy the space between skin cells

ter, the facility emphasizes research and graduate studies.

Established by Brentani in 2005, the FMUSP Oncology Center unified in one setting the practice of oncology, which had previously been split among the various specialties at the Hospital das Clínicas.

Brentani was a member of Icesp’s first advisory council, although he was never directly involved in the institute’s operation.

Icesp came into being with the prime goal of providing care for cancer patients in the state of São Paulo, but it was soon reorganized to encompass teaching and research as well. Its chief lines of research are in epidemiology, molecular oncology and biomarkers, and goal-directed therapy. Its aim is to improve diagnostics and to develop and refine treatments.

One of its current projects, led by researcher Roger Chammas, seeks to understand why some tumor treatments fail. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy can manage to destroy a tumor, for instance, but they leave open space in the tissue, which is often occupied by new tumor cells instead of healthy ones.

“We’re researching ways to avoid this repopulation by tumor cells and to boost treatment effectiveness,” says Chammas.

“Since the blood vessels inside tumors are often abnormal, one of the ways of doing this is to increase vascular tonus to make it easier for the drug to reach its target.

Pre-clinical trials have shown that it can be helpful to modulate vessel function.”

Chammas stresses that the cancer research conducted at USP is diverse and of great value to national production. Studies are underway across all campuses of the university in fields like physics, chemistry, and pharmacy. “We have more than 100 groups engaging in cancer-related lines of research at USP,” Chammas says.

“This means the university has been involved in about two out of every three scientific papers produced in the field in Brazil over the past five years.”

Another of Icesp’s fundamental roles is to aggregate this formerly scattered research and to facilitate communication among researchers in the field “When USP turns 100, I want to look back and see that Icesp served as a meeting point for all of the university’s cancer research groups, generating groundbreaking knowledge and applying it ethically to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients,” says Chammas. ■ pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 23

MEDICINE / BASIC RESEARCH

The formation of a school Reinaldo José Lopes

Enlarged heart: a consequence of hypertension, which in 30% of cases does not respond to drug therapy

24 SPECIAL USP AT 80

Beginning in modest circumstances, biomedical science groups are now in the forefront

Sheila terry / science photo library

D

r. Eduardo Moacyr Krieger, 86, of the University of São Paulo School of Medicine (FMUSP), is enthusiastic about the preliminary results of a recent study in which he is participating: an analysis of about 2,000 patients with hypertension from all over the Brazil. The goal is to find out what proportion of them are resistant to the treatment for high blood pressure.

In developed countries, up to 30% of patients fall into this category.

The good news: “The response of Brazilian patients to the treatment for hypertension has been really spectacular. The percentage of those with resistant hypertension is very low compared to the international average, provided that the patient receives all the necessary care. It is something comparable to the best results obtained in other countries. This will be very useful as a standard for the Unified Health System (SUS),” says Krieger, who cannot yet reveal the exact percentage because it is a multi-center study with 26 participating institutions.

Krieger’s career and that of other scientists of his generation, many still active, is illustrative of the transformations and the considerable advances in biomedical research that have been made at Brazil’s largest university. From modest beginnings, when USP researchers had to face challenges of infrastructure and public health or political persecution during the

military regime, the university has been able to form groups that are carrying out ambitious projects of scientific and social impact, working in cutting edge areas such as cell therapy and personalized medicine.

INSPIRED BY BUENOS AIRES

An interesting aspect of their origin is that many of the USP biomedical research groups received their inspiration and encouragement from Argentine researchers, who were already renowned as physiologists in the middle of the 20th century.

Among these figures was the first Argentine—and first Latin American—to receive a Nobel Prize for his achievements as a scientist: Bernardo Alberto Houssay (1887-1971), who won in 1947 for his work on the hormonal regulation of blood sugar levels. Under a program sponsored by the Brazilian Federal Agency for the Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (Capes), the Argentine laureate and his colleagues visited Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul State) in 1954. That’s when Krieger, a newly minted doctor, met Eduardo Braun Menéndez one of the disciples of the Nobel laureate, and was invited to spend a few months in Buenos Aires working with the team.

The environment had to be improvised.

Because of his opposition to the Argentine military regime, Houssay and his colleagues pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 25

26 SPECIAL USP AT 80

photos Luciana lima / ICB-usp

on the biology ofTrypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease, cites several seminal discoveries that, during the 1950s and 1960s, seemed to finally be revealing the secrets of how life works from the standpoint of its molecular bases: the discovery of the famous double helix structure of DNA; the process of energy production in mitochondria, the “power plants” of cells; how proteins are produced in ribosomes. “The circumstances were very favorable for becoming interested in science, and we had great teachers to show that to us,” he says.

According to Camargo, another reason he was attracted to parasitology was political: almost all the researchers involved in the field were politically leftleaning. “We were the red department of the School of Medicine,” he jokes.

Trypanosoma cruzi under the microscope: its proliferative form (smaller circles) within a cell…

Among his leftist colleagues were Luiz Hildebrando Pereira da Silva, who died in had been expelled from the University teachers and students, but the literal, 2014 and was a little older than Camargo, of Buenos Aires and forced to establish from father to son—the Argentine doctor and Professor Samuel Pessôa, a friend the Institute of Biology and Experimental also inspired Krieger’s son, José Eduardo of military officer and communist leadMedicine in a house provided by Mené- Krieger to follow in his footsteps. He now er Luis Carlos Prestes. The association ndez’s wealthy family—a different labo- heads the Genetics and Molecular Car- between political engagement and the parasitology department, ratory in every room. But the intellec- diology Laboratory of the then located at the Meditual fervor of that environment was so Heart Institute (InCor). cal School headquarters great, according to Krieger, that he fell in the neighborhood of in love with basic research and decided DNA REVOLUTION Pinheiros, was logical for to deepen his understanding of the fun- Indeed, the atmosphere “Science is many of these researchdamentals of the cardiovascular system. of that time both inside ers, if one considers the But the Argentine connection does and outside the state cap- learned from link between poverty and not end there. Dr. Miguel Covian, an- ital involved some comthose who serious diseases caused other member of Dr. Houssay’s group, mon ingredients. One of by parasites. “Professor was invited to join the Ribeirão Preto the most important was know it, not Pessôa said he wanted Medical School, established in 1951 by what you might call the to solve the problems of a São Paulo doctor, Zeferino Vaz, with a first revolutionary phase from reading a the Brazilian people,” says mission to become an institution dedi- of molecular biology, exCamargo. cated to research. Since he knew Krieger plains Dr. Erney Pless- book in the If this view served to from Buenos Aires, Covian called him to mann de Camargo, 79, a library,” says stimulate the scientific Ribeirão Preto, where the young doctor parasitologist at USP’s production of the group, settled in 1957.

Institute of Biomedical Dr. Eduardo it also placed its members “I usually say that I became a physi- Sciences, who in the early in harm’s way followologist only because I worked with a No- 1970s, in a nod to univer- Krieger ing the military coup of bel laureate in physiology,” says Krieger. sity reform, brought to1964. Several USP para“This kind of leadership in research is gether teachers and refundamental to one’s career because, af- searchers from several of the universi- sitologists were stripped of their polititer all, you learn science from those who ty’s basic science departments. Formerly cal rights by the new regime, including know it, not from reading a book in the scattered throughout various USP facul- Camargo. Both he and Pereira da Silva library. The training of a scientist is still ties, specialties such as histology, para- would later be arrested. Camargo would very much like learning a craft: you start sitology, immunology and physiology, not return permanently to USP until the as an apprentice. And these great person- in addition to others that today are the 1980s, welcomed at an event attended alities are the ones who are enthusiastic source of significant scientific produc- by about 200 people that served as the and persuasive and who create a kind of tion at the international level, migrated university’s way of making amends to genealogical chain of researchers.” Coin- to the Institute on the main campus in the formerly persecuted parasitologist.

To Camargo, although today’s univercidentally, with regard to the genealogy the São Paulo neighborhood of Butantã. itself—not the metaphorical, involving Camargo, who has done major work sity environment at times seems less po-

liticized than the 1960s, the differences are not as great as one might think. “I do not believe that the intellectual and political structure of the scientific community has changed significantly since then. What changed greatly were the circumstances: the end of the specter of the Cold War, the end of the physical and cultural oppression when the military regime collapsed, and the continuing, though slow, humanization of capitalism. I’m fairly certain that if some kind of oppression were to return, the nonconformism of the scientific community would also return, and would again be called subversive,” he argues.

Camargo is now engaged in trying to understand, in a broad sense, the evolutionary history of the trypanosomatids group, as it relates to causing Chagas disease. A wide variety of vertebrates, from fish to reptiles, are affected by these creatures, not only transmitted by insects known popularly as o barbeiro (the kissing bug), but also by ticks and leeches.

Being able to study this fascinating evolutionary trajectory is, in part, a measure of the success of parasitology, he says.

“The parasitology of my early career had incredible sanitary and socio-political challenges linked to malaria, Chagas disease, schistosomiasis and diseases caused by other vermin. It was, quite correctly, a parasitology directed toward human diseases. Today, these problems are not on the same scale as at other times, nevertheless parasitology has become

a very important branch of natural history, since parasites constitute the largest group of living things on the Earth.”

FROM BENCH TO BEDSIDE

At about the time Krieger was becoming established in Ribeirão Preto, the duo formed by Drs. Maurício Rocha e Silva (who died in 1983) and Sérgio Henrique Ferreira, now 80, did work that would become the basis for some of the first effective drugs for reducing hypertension. They analyzed, for example, how substances found in the venom of the Bothrops jararaca (pit viper) affects bradykinin, a molecule produced naturally by the body.

Later, Ferreira would explain the mechanism by which substances such as aspirin and morphine combat pain and inflammation. Today, younger colleagues of Ferreira at USP in Ribeirão Preto, like Fernando de Queiroz Cunha, are continuing this work in order to tackle diseases involving inflammatory mechanisms, such as sepsis (generalized infection), rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.

“You could say that Mauricio Rocha e Silva is my scientific ‘grandfather’ and Sergio Ferreira is my ‘father,’ ” says Cunha, returning to the genealogy metaphor—Ferreira in this case was his doctoral advisor.

Although several USP biomedical research groups have for decades focused on the clinical applications of the findings of basic science, Cunha says the pace has picked up over the past five years,

… and its extracellular form, with flagellum, in blood from an infected mouse

with an increasing emphasis on so-called translational research.

The advantage of the Ribeirão Preto campus in this regard, according to Cunha, is that it has a good hospital and is very active in basic research. In addition to pharmacology and immunology, groups such as the one headed by Dr. Marco Antonio Zago, current president of USP, have won distinction. Zago’s group investigates hematological diseases and the use of stem cells to treat some forms of blood cancer.

“The issue,” says Cunha, “is that the Brazilian pharmaceutical industry is only now beginning to realize the importance of radical innovation. The market share controlled by Brazilian companies is important and robust, but until recently has focused almost exclusively on generic or similar products.” Thanks in part to research-sponsoring agencies, according to Cunha, cooperation between the university and the productive sector is beginning to take hold. “We cannot expect the university to bring a new product into the market,” he says.

An example of an initiative that may become a reality in the future is an immunobiological test developed by Cunha and his colleagues for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Most patients with this autoimmune disease respond well to the use of methotrexate, a major anti-arthritic drug.

However approximately 30% of patients do not respond to it, but this becomes clear only three to six months after the start of treatment. The test developed by the Ribeirão team would indicate from the outset that methotrexate will not work for a specific patient. “This means that six months of treatment would not be wasted,” he says. The team has already applied for a patent for the test and is negotiating its manufacture by Brazilian companies.

The group has also made progress on understanding sepsis, a generalized infection that can affect hospitalized patients following major surgery and is fatal in up to 50% of cases in Brazil. Sepsis is a complex phenomenon. Part of the risk it poses to health comes from the fact that, at some stage, signals of the immune system become confused and “tired,” thereby preventing it from effectively attacking the bacteria that cause sepsis. The Ribeirão team has now identified a molecule that could serve as a target for new drugs that would restore that signaling. n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 27

Biology / Genetics

A deep-rooted lineage Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade

Neuronal embryonic stem cells forming neural networks, seen through fluorescence microscopy

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The institutionalization of human genetics at USP has helped shape excellent research teams in the Biosciences Institute

Riccardo Cassiani-Ingoni / Science Photo Library

“T

hey’re here!” shouted a student of geneticist Mayana Zatz upon bursting into the classroom at the Human Genome Research Center (HGRC), in an annex to the Biosciences Institute of the University of São Paulo (IB-USP).

The student was referring to the newborn pups of two female golden retrievers, both carriers of muscular dystrophy, a neuromuscular disease that leads to progressive weakening of the muscles and an inability to move. The dogs are part of a stem cell study, an important component of HGRC research efforts, along with more traditional studies such as those associated with the human genome. “We injected the stem cells into dogs with dystrophy for the purpose of trying to reverse the effects

pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 29

of the disease,” Zatz explains. In a previ- Pessoa, who died in 2010 at the age of ous study on the same breed, her group 93. One of Brazil’s pioneers in human observed that some of the animals car- and medical genetics, he was Zatz’ unried genes that neutralized the negative dergraduate advisor in the 1960s. At the effects of the mutation responsible for time, he was already caring for people the dystrophy. The dogs had a genetic with a variety of genetic diseases. “In alteration associated with the disease, his view, the patients helped generate which prevented them from produc- new research studies, so the new studies ing dystrophin, an essential protein for had to help the patients,” Zatz explains. maintaining muscle integrity. None of “Frota-Pessoa trained all the medical gethe dogs presented the classic signs of neticists of my generation as well as the dystrophy, such as difficulty in walking, generation that preceded me.”

Born in Rio de Janeihowever. ro in 1917, Frota-Pessoa Zatz believes neurostudied natural history muscular diseases are at the University of the perhaps the first to benFederal District. In 1941, efit from stem cell stud- Crodowaldo he graduated from what ies. In cases of muscular was then known as the dystrophy, she explains, Pavan helped of Brazil. Still there is muscle degenstart the center University in Rio de Janeiro at the eration and, despite time, he began to collabothe fact that the body for human rate with geneticists from has many muscles, it USP, led by André Dreyis easier to replace an genetics and fus, one of those responarea of affected tissue sible for bringing Russian than it is to make a new medicine at the biologist and naturalized muscle through the use Biosciences American Theodosius of stem cells. In 2012, Dobzhansky to Brazil Zatz’ group concluded Institute from Columbia Univerthat injecting adult husity where he had introman stem cells together with administering daily doses of a duced the genetic study of drosophilae growth factor could be a possible al- (fruit flies). Dobzhansky is remembered ternative to the treatment of progres- as a researcher that made numerous sive muscular dystrophies in mice. In requests for study trips, resources and the study published in the journal Stem equipment. As a condition for coming Cell Reviews and Reports, the group re- to Brazil, he demanded a research trip ports that while the combination did not to the Amazon region. Dobzhansky’s generate new muscles, it reduced the visit influenced Frota-Pessoa to return inflammation and fibrosis in the exist- to studying the Brazilian species of fruit flies during his doctoral program. In ing muscle.

Zatz’ successful research studies in the 1960s, Frota-Pessoa was invited by the field of stem cells and in other ar- Crodowaldo Pavan, another important eas of genetics have made her one of the member of the group that helped instimost visible Brazilian scientists in the tutionalize genetics in Brazil, to set up world. As professor at the Biosciences a human and medical genetics unit in Institute, the geneticist has headed up the Department of Biology at the Bioscithe HGRC, one of the FAPESP-funded ences Institute. “This unit later became Research Innovation and Dissemina- the HGRC,” Zatz says. tion Centers (RIDC), since 2000. In all, the group led by Zatz has already cared HISTORY OF EXCELLENCE for 20,000 people suffering from neu- The network of individuals who later romuscular diseases. “It is the largest enabled the establishment of groups of sample in the world studied at a single excellence at USP in human genetics center,” she says. “Today, we’re follow- and genomics began to take shape in the ing the second generation of these pa- 1930s, a decade marked by establishment tients.” The research and patient care of activities at USP in 1934. The hisconducted at the HGRC is one of the tory of these individuals is often mixed legacies left by geneticist Oswaldo Frota- with the history of that university — the 30 SPECIAL USP AT 80

IB-USP building, which houses the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, is named after André Dreyfus, for example. Its halls display signs of history at every turn. Among them are scattered the pieces of the collection of the Institute’s memory, including photographs, fossil collections, statues and even a cabinet belonging to Crodowaldo Pavan.

The Biosciences Institute was established in 1969. It included the departments of biology, botany, physiology and zoology, established in 1934 together with the Chair of General Biology, occupied by André Dreyfus at the USP School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH). Dreyfus was among members of the committee tasked with developing the project to establish São Paulo’s first public university. It was admiration for him that led Harry Miller Jr. of the Rockefeller Foundation to fund the purchase of laboratory equipment and research, and to bring Dobzhansky to Brazil to give a course on evolution, attended by nearly all biologists of USP, the Biological Institute of São Paulo and the Campinas Institute of Agronomy (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 168).

Today, the third floor of the IB building is the site of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory, created in 1996 through a FAPESP-funded project and since then led by geneticist Lygia da Veiga Pereira.

A physics graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ), Pereira came to the Biosciences Institute motivated by the work

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Pavan in his office in the 1950s, in the department’s attic on Alameda Glete

photos 1 IB-USP Memory Committee Collection 2 eduardo cesar

of the groups led by Mayana Zatz and biologist Angela Morgante, whose master’s and doctoral advisor was Frota-Pessoa.

In 2008, Pereira’s group announced that it had obtained the first Brazilian lineage of embryonic stem cells, BR-1, from a single embryo frozen three years earlier. To get to the BR-1 lineage, Pereira says, 250 embryos had to be defrosted, of which only 35 developed to the fifth day, the stage at which the cells are able to be extracted. “This is how we replace imported stem cells and develop our own technical competence to obtain and maintain these lineages,” Pereira says.

Up to now, her laboratory is the only one in Brazil to produce human embryonic stem cells. Pereira’s group recently obtained funds for construction of the National Laboratory of Embryonic Stem Cell Research (LaNCE), which 2 will produce lineages for clinical use.

“The other part of the stem cells produced in the future laboratory will be A biomedical researcher handles stem cells grown in a greenhouse at 37ºC used in testing for drug response,” she says. Anferent problems. One per- science undertaking ever carried out in other important project son might have a cardiac Brazil, targeting the genetic sequencing developed in the laboproblem, while another of an organism.

Launched in 1997 through the ratory involves what The golden develops an ocular comare known as induced plication.” In studies us- FAPESP Genome Program, the work of pluripotent stem cells, days may have ing genetically modified sequencing the 2.7 million chromosomal mature cells that can be mice, the researchers are bases of Xylella, according to Menck, been reprogrammed to again trying to identify the genes enabled USP researchers to enter a new become able to generate sequencing that interact with the gene field of knowledge: bioinformatics. “At a number of different responsible for the syn- the time, it wasn’t clear whether the sebody tissues. “We have the genome of drome, which causes two quencing would constitute progress for developed a technique people with the same dis- us. There was a lot of criticism!” the reused to produce these the Xylella ease to develop different searcher recalls. “But we became adept in terms of sequencing and data analysis cells here in the labocomplications. fastidiosa technologies, especially with regard to ratory,” Pereira says. bioinformatics, which had no commu“Using these, we plan bacterium RECOGNITION to compile a library of The golden days of the nity up to that point in Brazil,” he says. pluripotent cells that Biosciences Institute, ac- “All of this represented a huge advance represent Brazilian gecording to biologist and for USP research groups,” he concludes. netic diversity. In the future, we would professor in the USP Botany Depart- The project received international reclike to be able to test the drug response ment, Marie-Anne Van Sluys, perhaps ognition in 2000 with publication of a of cells derived from the pluripotent came during the time of sequencing the cover story in the journal Nature about cells in in vitro experiments.” genome of the Xylella fastidiosa bacte- sequencing of the bacterium’s genetic Since 1996, Pereira’s group has dedi- rium, responsible for citrus variegated code (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. cated a portion of the laboratory resourc- chlorosis, also known as yellowing dis- 55). “It is important to mention the work es to the study of Marfan syndrome, a ease, which at the time affected 34% of of Andrew Simpson, the project’s DNA genetic disorder characterized by the the orange groves in the state of São Pau- coordinator, whose enthusiasm never development of very long limbs, along lo. Van Sluys and her husband, molecular faded, and who never cut corners, allowwith such things as cardiovascular, oc- biologist Carlos Menck of the USP Bio- ing us to move forward,” Menck recalls.

For the ICB researcher, despite the ular and bone complications. Clinical medical Sciences Institute, were part of manifestations of the syndrome in hu- a group of 190 researchers from various important legacies left by the project, mans are quite varied, the geneticist institutions and fields that, through a vir- such as Alellyx, the biotechnology comexplains. “Members of a single family tual network of 60 laboratories, worked pany founded in 2002 by Votorantim Nowith the same mutation can develop dif- on what was considered to be the largest vos Negócios, the USP researchers did pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 31

not continue to make contributions to the field of bioinformatics. “I believe one of the reasons for this was the difficulty in developing the field of genome bioinformatics that is still in its infancy at USP.” In any case, “the genome projects had a tremendous impact on USP, but we could have gone much further if we kept groups working on sequence analysis studies, especially from the evolutionary perspective,” he says. “Dobzhansky would have loved this!”

Successful sequencing of the Xylella genome broadened the scope of the FAPESP Genome Program, which was later engaged in other projects of significant social and economic interest.

One of them was the Sugarcane Genome Project known as the FAPESP SUCEST Project, which was responsible for mapping 238,000 functional sugarcane gene fragments. “The SUCEST project paved the way for the use of molecular markers in crop improvement,” says molecular biologist Glaucia Souza, professor at the USP Chemistry Institute and SUCEST participant. Nearly 240 researchers from 22 institutions worked from 1999 to 2002 to identify the expressed sequence tags (EST) of sugarcane.

“The project enabled us to learn about sugarcane metabolism,” says Souza, who today coordinates the FAPESP Program for Research on Bioenergy (BIOEN) and SUCEST-FUN, which focuses on the functional analysis of sugarcane genes and the identification of genes associated with agronomic traits of interest. The group’s work is directed towards such topics as generating transgenic plants and investigating genes associated with sucrose content, biomass, drought tolerance, phosphate deficiency and climate change.

The researchers still want to understand how these genes work. Souza explains that initially, the project focused only on the functional DNA sequencing of sugarcane, ignoring the genes that had no known function. “Now we’re trying to identify strands of DNA known as promoters,” she says. Under an agreement with the Microsoft Research Institute for a research study on sugarcane genomics, her group is working on the annotation and analysis of the gene activity, which could allow the cultivation of varieties with higher or lower quantities of sugar in areas with little water. n 32 SPECIAL USP AT 80

Biology / Zoology

Evolutionary history in progress Studies of vertebrates and invertebrates on land and sea aim to understand the processes of species diversification

F

or over 40 years, zoologist Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues has been studying snakes and lizards to understand their biology and evolution. But sitting in the sand dunes of the São Francisco River or in areas of the Atlantic Forest or Amazônia to examine the shape and size of scales and measure animals captured by him or his colleagues never gets old.

The research study he leads is monitoring advances in evolutionary science, a focus that pervades the Biosciences Institute and its Department of Zoology.

Currently heading up a large FAPESP-funded project that seeks nothing short of investigating the evolutionary history of reptiles and amphibians within the context of environmental changes, his group aligns traditional analysis of physical characteristics with genetic markers and models that take into account climate fluctuations that took place thousands of years ago. One example of the breadth of the research focus is the indication, from the analysis of 25 Brazilian vertebrates, that climate changes approximately 250,000 years ago had a different impact on endemic species diver-

importance of correctly reconstructing the genealogical history of the groups in order to understand the processes of natural selection, according to an article that appeared in the January 2014 issue of the journal The Anatomical Record.

From land to sea, the group led by Antônio Carlos Marques is following the same line of research and has analyzed a total of 24,671 tiny marine animals in the past three years. The studies have led to the reorganization of the phylogenic understanding of an entire phylum: the cnidarians, (including such creatures as sea anemones, coral, jelly-fish and hydra) and have established new global dimensions for understanding the evolution of the group.

According to Marques, based on material analyzed by the research group he coordinates, hypotheses have been proposed regarding biogeographical provinces on the scale of southern South America (Atlantic and Pacific) and all of Antarctica (southern Atlantic and sub-Antarctic regions), constituting their most auspicious compilation of data to date.

miguel rodrigues

Pioneers

According to Rodrigues, however, USP zoology did not always have this evolutionary vision of the world. An important chapter that affected the trajectory Calyptommatus leiolepis: example of a lizard from the dunes of the São Francisco with loss of limbs of the department took place in late 1962 when a vacancy arose for chairmanship of the Department of Zoology, at the time of the retisification when one comrement of German propares Brazil’s northern and fessor Ernesto Marcus, southern forests.

The building who along with colleaIn the context of species gue Paulo Sawaya had diversification, the group that is now established the study is also studying how the part of the IB of zoology on the new evolution of crucial chacampus of the Univerracteristics for adaptation was the first sity of São Paulo in Buto specific environments, tantã during the 1950s. such as the reduction or building of The selection comloss of limbs in lizards that mittee chose Diva Dislither through the sands what was then niz Correa, who aligalong the banks of the São the new ned herself with the Francisco River, could in anatomy and histology some cases be reversed Butantan focus of the university and follow the opposite founders, guaranteeing path, seen in the recovery campus an even longer surviof digits or paws (see the val of the vision little Special Issue 50 Years of FAPESP). The presence of functional grounded in evolution. The opposite eyelids in a genus of the family of Gym- viewpoint was represented by scientist nophthalmid lizards, characterized by and samba composer Paulo Emílio Vanexposed eyes, serves as a reminder of the zolini, who in the face of the selection

went across town and carved out a niche in the neighborhood of Ipiranga, in the historical building that houses the USP Zoology Museum. He would end up directing the institution into the early 1990s. “That outcome could have really changed history,” says Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues, former director of the Zoology Museum and currently associate professor at the Biosciences Institute of USP (IB-USP), referring to the choice made in hiring Vanzolini.

Ready in 1957, the zoology building, which today is a part of the Biosciences Institute, was the first project completed on what was then the new Butantan campus, contemporary of only the IPT building. But it was not just the construction of the building that helped Marcus and Sawaya put USP zoology on the map.

They began several lines of research until then unknown in Brazil. When Marcus arrived in Brazil from the University of Berlin in 1936 after fleeing the Nazis, he had already published more than 50 scientific papers in his career.

According to Rodrigues, student of Vanzolini and one of Brazil’s leading herpetologists, the history of zoology at USP has two very distinct stages. “Particularly in the last 30 years, the work of Vanzolini, who connected zoology to issues of evolution, has generated results both in the museum as well as in the IB. There was a lot of commonality.”

It is not only the past that has an interesting history, says Marques. “What’s beautiful about this story is that instead of replacing the approaches of the past, more recent approaches have been gradually added in. This has resulted in high-quality zoology that has a strong historical basis, but which contextualizes its questions into relevant, state-of-the art current themes. And the future is here in the presence of excellent young researchers such as Professors Daniel Lahr, Taran Grant, André Morandini and Federico Brown.”

There is one project ready, completed

by Rodrigues, which would give the USP Zoology Museum a completely new building on campus, along what is known as the Museum Plaza. For now, though, the construction schedule has not yet been defined. The first date for launching at least part of the Museum Plaza was 2013, but as of yet there has been no construction on the future zoology museum. n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 33

Biology / Botany

Among the algae and lianas Gilberto Stam

Untangled: lianas have helped researchers unravel mysteries behind the origins of the Amazon region’s biodiversity

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Researchers study the processes of species diversification through surveys of flora

n recent decades, traditional approaches to surveying flora and fauna conducted by the University of São Paulo Biosciences Institute (IB-USP) have been reinforced in an important way, thanks to the use of genetic material in the reconstruction of phylogenies, the branching diagrams that trace the evolutionary relationships between species. As knowledge advanced, however, it became clear that explaining the origin of biodiversity would require a new step, one that could tell the full story about the ecological and geographic changes that led to the great ecosystems, or biomes.

In the case of the region of greatest biodiversity on earth—the Amazon—important parts of this story are now beginning to unfold. “Data gathered from lianas indicate that species diversification in the Amazon region occurred about three million years ago,” says botanist Lúcia Lohmann, who specializes in the Bignoniaceae family of plants (which includes

léo ramos

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pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 35

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Astolpho de Souza Grotta examines a dehydrated plant in a herbarium in the 1970s

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seas. “Our diversity has been thoroughly studied but is still not sufficiently recognized,” says Mariana Cabral de Oliveira, an expert on algae and head of the Department of Botany. “The number of species has doubled for some groups of algae, and we’ve even discovered new genera” she adds. Researchers are using molecular markers that work as barcodes to distinguish species that appear morphologically identical, or to unite others that present morphological variations in different environments. Among other findings, along the Brazilian coast the group discovered a species of algae—only a few millimeters in size—found previously only in coastal Somalia and Kenya by an Italian researcher in the 1970s and 1980s.

These algae are already a component of the fossil record and play an important role in explaining the evolution of calcareous algae (Corallinales).

Despite novel approaches, surveys of flora continue to form the basis of biodiversity studies. The department has already compiled exhaustive lists of flora from the Serra do Cipó and Serra do Grão Mogol—an area of rupestrian vegetation—both in the Espinhaço range of Minas Gerais State and collaborated on the flora of São Paulo, a project that involves work coordinated by the Botanical Institute of São Paulo. The department also published a study of the flora of benthic marine algae (those that remain at the bottom of the ocean) in Brazil, as well as the algae of Abrolhos Reef, in the state of Bahia. “The survey of flora forms the basis of all research concerning plant evolution, since an understanding of plant morphology is required to establish a connection between the ecological and phylogenetic aspects,” explains José Rubens Pirani, a professor at the department, adding that “this also contributes to one’s academic training, as each student can focus on a particular family or group as he begins his studies.”

Surveys have also played an important role in promoting conservation. The flora of the Serra do Cipó and Serra do Grão Mogol served as decisive arguments to convince government authorities to establish parks in these areas.

Also, Eurico Cabral de Oliveira’s algae studies contributed to the creation of the Marinho de Abrolhos National Park as well as the Atol das Rocas Biological Marine Reserve.

photos 1 Department of Botany archives 2 Eurico C. de Oliveira / IB-USP

lianas, ipes and rosewood). “Studies of current data on the geographic distribubirds, primates and butterflies also con- tion of the species, led to the identificafirm these data,” adds Lohmann. tion of the places of origin of numerous Geological data, in turn, indicate that lineages, as well as the biogeographic the Amazon River basin was formed over history of that particular group. the same period. A network of rivers The origin of vines, also known as liatraverse the Amazon region, separating nas, can be traced back approximately populations and interrupting gene flows, 50 million years to the Atlantic Forest thereby causing species differentiation region. A little more than 40 million yefrom area to area in a classic example of ars ago, these plants arrived in the Amathe dynamics of geographic speciation zon region, where they underwent vast via isolation as first theorized by Char- diversification. Ten million years later, les Darwin. “In the case of birds,” again a liana lineage went on to occupy parts according to Lohmann, “we have some of the Cerrado and rupestrian regions, examples of terrestrial groups whose undergoing profound transformation current distribution fits perfectly into and adaptation to scrub fire. Some spethe basin’s hydrography.” cies became shrub, losing their tendrils, The lianas offer a good reference for while others developed a buried stem study because they both typify tropical that—like a bulb—allowed them to bloom forests and differentiate them from tem- again after a fire. Later, particular speperate ones. However, cies occupied the Atlanbecause Lohmann had tic Forest, reaching their proceeded well into her current number of 400. system of Bignoniaceae classification—up to then Molecular Oceans a big headache for botaOur growing knowledge nists—she could only use markers of biodiversity is not lithese plants as a group mited to the information work model for the project as we gather on land, howea whole. The researcher as species ver. Research into marine then redid the entire clasalgae through the use of sification to reflect inter- barcodes phylogenetic techniques -species lineages. This is expanding the number work, cross-checked with of known species in our

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Marine algae diversity remains underestimated despite the tradition of research by the department

Tradition

The new holistic approach follows along the lines of the tradition of conservation and research into flora

The focus on native biodiversity can be traced back to the work of plant anatomist Nanuza Luiza de Menezes, the first to study a family known only to Brazil—the Velloziaceae—of the Vellozia squamata group, popularly known as “canela-de-ema”, typical of rupestrian vegetation. Menezes, who turned 80 along with USP, studied under Aylthon Brandão Joly, who instituted the department’s biodiversity studies in 1940. At Joly’s insistence, Menezes abandoned her avocado research (at the time it was common practice to focus on exotic species) and focus exclusively on plants that were native to Brazil.

She then became the first researcher to visit the rupestrian areas. “I fell in love with the landscape and the Velloziaceae, and focused my research there,” she explains. Today Menezes’ anatomical

studies are one of the pieces of the puzzle that contribute to understanding the evolutionary history of the plants.

The new holistic approach follows along the lines of this tradition of conservation and research into flora. “With the knowledge that we’re acquiring, conservation goes from being merely a topic for discussion to having a solid scientific basis,” says Lohmann, adding that “it will be possible to pinpoint priority areas and species for purposes of conservation.” The project Lohmann coordinates involves a partnership between USP and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, along with 17 other institutions in Brazil, the United States, Argentina, England and Canada. Now in its third year, the thematic project promises the introduction of a new methodology to serve as a standard for studying other Brazilian biomes. n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 37

Exact and Earth Sciences / Physics and Chemistry

Familiarity with materials Igor Zolnerkevic

New life: new devices will allow the Pelletron to operate at maximum energy

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Teams work with new materials, biological molecules and clean energy generated via nuclear fusion

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Eduardo Cesar

t is difficult to walk through the University of São Paulo (USP) Physics Institute and not notice, in the work of researchers and the many devices they use, the influence of physicist Mário Schenberg (1914-1990), one of the most important Brazilian scientists of the 20th century. His political and scientific activities were critical in founding the institute and in its international reach, on which he did not work officially—Schenberg was removed from his position at USP by the military regime in 1969, one year before the institute was inaugurated.

On December 3, 2014, 100 years after his birth, a tribute to him brought together some former students, such as physicist Ernst Hamburger, a USP professor emeritus and one of the pioneers in Brazilian science communication. “Schenberg was a professor with a very broad intellectual outlook,” said Hamburger.

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Wataghin in Brazilian Air Force aircraft with equipment to measure cosmic rays at altitude, in 1940

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first assistants were engineers who had recently graduated from the Polytechnic School, who he had convinced to switch to physics: Schenberg, Paulus Aulus Pompeia and Marcelo Damy de Souza Santos.

Pompeia, Damy and Wataghin did a series of experiments to detect cosmic rays—subatomic particles resulting from the collision of atomic nuclei coming from space with those in Earth’s atmosphere. The discovery that particles called mesons were created in a series of cascading collisions in the sky had a strong impact on the international scientific community even in the 1930s.

“Wataghin’s choice was perfect,” recalls Silvio Salinas, a physicist at USP and a Brazilian expert in theoretical statistical mechanics, a field that he originally studied under Schenberg. “At the time, studying cosmic rays was the best way to search for new elementary particles.”

Damy coordinated the construction of the first large electron accelerator in Brazil and founded nuclear physics research centers in various Brazilian research institutions. One of his students, the physicist César Lattes, had played a fundamental role in the discovery of a new particle, the pion, which was the source of the 1950

Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Cecil Powell. The team of Oscar Sala, another student of Damy, designed and built two new nuclear particle accelerators, considered cutting-edge technology in the 1950s and 1970s. The second was the Pelletron accelerator, which is still in use today in the Physics Institute.

A LOT OF ENERGY

The Pelletron recently underwent upgrades to allow the group of researchers led by physicist Rubens Lichtenthäler Filho to create exotic atomic nuclei, one of the current frontiers of nuclear physics. In order to study even more energetic subatomic phenomena, IF-USP researchers have been participating in international collaborations at more powerful particle accelerators for years. One example is the group led by physicist Alejandro Szanto, who is working on data analysis and the design of new instruments for experiments at the LHC, the most powerful accelerator in the world, located on the French-Swiss border and run by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 177 and 213).

Schenberg stood out from Wataghin’s

Photos 1 IF-USP 2 Eduardo Cesar

“In the early 1950s, he realized that electronics would form the basis of future technology and used his political influence to convince USP to purchase an IBM computer and set up a solid state physics laboratory.” Among the students of Schenberg’s students were physicist Adalberto Fazzio, current dean of the Physics Institute and coordinator of one of the principal atomic and molecular physics research groups in Brazil. Taking advantage of the meeting, the researchers presented their latest results in areas such as nanotechnology and spintronics, a new subfield of electronics (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 192).

Schenberg was one of the members of a first exceptional class of physicists recruited by the Ukrainian physicist Gleb Wataghin. In 1934, Wataghin was a professor and researcher in Italy when he accepted the challenge of coming to Brazil and founding the physics department of the recently inaugurated USP School of Philosophy, Literature and Science (FFCL). One year later he published, as sole author, the first article by a USP physicist in an international scientific journal, Physical Review, on the thermal properties of elementary particles. His

Theoretical physicists and mathematicians want to understand the essence of simple things and of complex systems like human language

other students because of his mathematical abilities. His international fame, incidentally, comes from just two articles written in 1940 in the United States, one with George Gamow and the other with Subramanyan Chandrasekhar. The two articles formed the pillars of the theory of astrophysics, whose results are used even today by astronomers to understand the death of massive stars. Schenberg dedicated most of his career to mathematical physics methods and the relationships between quantum mechanics, electromagnetism and the general theory of relativity, making original attempts to unify these theories. These objectives are similar to those of current USP theoretical and mathematical physicists who, in addition to seeking the essence of the simple and fundamental, venture into multidisciplinary research to attempt to understand complex systems such as human language (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 210).

Experimental physics has diversified.

From the first solid state and low temperature physics laboratory at USP, in-

augurated in 1962 thanks to Schenberg’s initiative, as well as the introduction of graduate programs at the institute in the 1970s, in the decades that followed, new laboratories and theoretical groups working in various fields appeared: from unprecedented manipulation of quantum light particles, to the physics of gas and dust particles in the atmosphere that influence global climate change, and ranging from the application of physics to medicine and the characterization of new materials and biological molecules, to the search for clean energy generation through nuclear fusion (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 164, 217 and 214).

The USP Physics Institute in São Carlos was established in the 1960s at the initiative of physicist Sérgio Mascarenhas, who saw the potential for physics of materials to transform technology. In his laboratories, unprecedented states are used, in which matter is cooled to close to absolute zero, and new quantum phenomena with the potential to revolutionize computing are explored (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 162 and 220).

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Radioactive Ion Beams: sole device in Southern Hemisphere helps scientists understand the reactions in supernova stars billions of years ago pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 41

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The old laboratory created by Schenberg remains at the forefront, working with 11 other laboratories at the Physics Institute, Polytechnic School and USP Chemistry Institute (IQ) to develop microscopic technologies on the scale of millionths of a millimeter, known as nanotechnology. “All of the descriptions of the physical properties of nanoparticles developed at the IQ are developed at the IF and Poli,” says Fazzio, who coordinates the collaboration together with chemist Henrique Toma from the IQ. FERMENTING

Together with chemist Koiti Araki, Toma is coordinating a nanotechnology laboratory that has already produced a molecule that spontaneously organizes to form a thin film used as a sensor to monitor the quality of wine, and a new type of nanoparticle that connects to enzymes used in biotechnology chemical processes, allowing the enzymes to be controlled by magnetic fields, thus increasing the efficiency of their reactions (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 60).

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Toma started his career at USP pursuing his PhD under the supervision of John Malin, one of the North American post-doctoral researchers on the team that came to work at the IQ in the early 1970s, led by Canadian Henry Taube, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1983. Taube and his team worked at USP for a few years, training Brazilian students and starting new lines of research in Brazil through a joint program between the CNPq and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which was the brainchild of chemist Carl Djerassi, famous for synthesizing one of the molecules of the first generation of oral contraceptives. The program was supported

by FAPESP. One of the post-doctoral researchers accompanying Taube was Simon Campbell, who later discovered the base substance of Viagra.

“We learned how a team of top chemists worked,” says Toma. After the success of the CNPq/NAS program in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the country’s chemists called for implementation of a similar program on a larger scale, which

became the CNPq Support Program for Scientific and Technological Development (PADCT). “Since the PADCT, Brazilian chemistry has reached international levels,” he affirms.

Before that, according to Toma, the USP IQ was still very timid compared to its physicist colleagues. The Germans Heinrich Rheinboldt and Heinrich Hauptmann started the chemistry program within the FFCL in 1935, setting up improvised demonstration laboratories in the amphitheater of the School of Medicine. The FFCL Chemistry Department was housed in the mansion on Alameda Glete from 1939 to 1965 when the chemistry departments of the FFCL, the School of Biochemical Pharmacy and the Polytechnic School transferred their laboratories to what is now called the Chemistry Complex, a set of interconnected buildings on the Butantã Campus that now houses the IQ, established in 1970.

Today, the researchers work with equipment that allows them to employ different techniques, such as computer

Photos 1 ACERVO DE FAMÍLIA 2 ICASSIUS STEVANI/USP

The Chemistry Department’s first home: the mansion at 463 Glete street, in 1927

simulations and spectroscopy, in experiments involving almost all of the chemical elements in the periodic table. The team of chemist Claudimir do Lago, for example, is developing miniaturized chemical analysis techniques that could one day permit detailed blood tests with a single drop.

Other groups of researchers are synthesizing luminescent substances out of rare earth elements, and plastics and gels with therapeutic properties for use in prosthetics and bandages for medical applications. Teams at the IQ, the USP São Carlos Chemistry Institute and the Chemistry Department at the Riberão Preto School of Philosophy, Science and Languages and Literature (USP) develop projects with a focus known as green chemistry, attempting to make industrial processes more economical and less polluting (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 86, 161, 83, and 190).

PROTOZOA AND GENES

FAPESP initiatives strengthened chemistry research in São Paulo during the same period in which the CNPq/NAS program was active. Inaugurated in 1967, the Natural Products Chemistry Laboratory became internationally known due to the biochemist Otto Gottlieb, who led the laboratory until 1990. Gottlieb was nominated for a Nobel Prize twice for his discovery of a class of plant substances with anti-inflammatory properties called neolignans. One of Gottlieb’s students,

chemist Vanderlan Bolzani, heads a nat- and respiratory diseases in the municiural products center at the São Paulo pality of Cubatão, São Paulo State. One State University (Unesp) Chemistry In- of Bechara’s former students, Cassius Stevani, is currently studying the same stitute in Araraquara.

Modern Brazilian biochemistry grew chemical reactions to understand how due to another initiative, the Bioq/ bioluminescent fungi generate light, FAPESP program, which financed the knowledge that could lead to the manstays of visiting professors and research ufacture of chemical sensors for environprojects from 1970 to 1978. The propos- mental pollution (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 92 and 168). als were evaluated by a Many other research committee that includgroups grew and muled biochemist Marshall tiplied after the Bioq/ Nisenberg, a Nobel Prize FAPESP program, such winner in Medicine and A chemistry as those led by the disPhysiology in 1968. It was ciples of biologist and through the support of group makes biochemist Francisco Bioq, for example, that the luminescent Lara: Rogério Meneghiteam led by Walter Colli, a biochemist at the IQ, substances and ni, Walter Terra and Hugo Armelin. Meneghini discovered and described discovered important dethe sugar molecules that gels for use in tails about the structure help Trypanosoma cruzi, and function of DNA, the organism that causes prosthetics while his colleague SérChagas disease, to install and bandages gio Verjoski continues itself in human cells. to explore the activity This program also supof thousands of genes ported chemist Giuseppe on diseases such as prosCilento, who developed tate cancer (see Pesquisa pioneering experiments on the chemical generation of light FAPESP Issue No. 74). Terra and his colby living organisms. Years later, in the leagues uncovered the relationship be1980s, one of Cilento’s former students tween the biochemistry of insects that and IQ professor, biochemist Etelvino transmit diseases to humans and agriculBechara, helped prove that chemical tural pests. Armelin studies the chemisreactions caused by free radicals from try involved in the growth and life cycle industrial pollution were responsible of animal cells.

Mari Cleide Sogayar, one of Armefor the increase in cases of anencephaly lin’s former students, coordinates the Cellular and Molecular Therapy Center (NUCEL). Her team developed microcapsules that drastically increase the chances of success of pancreas cell transplants in diabetic patients (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 182). Transferred in 2012 from the IQ to the USP School of Medicine, NUCEL is now housed in a building built next to the University Hospital, with the objective of becoming an international reference center in translational medicine. One of Sogayar’s young collaborators at NUCEL, the post-doctoral researcher Ana Claudia Carreira, who completed her PhD with Verjovski in 2006 and is already considered a 1A level researcher by CNPq, is searching for new therapies using biopharmaceuticals and stem cells. The new generation 2 of excellence appears to be guaranteed. n

Mycena fera: mushrooms shine all the time, but are seen only in the dark pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 43

EXACT AND EARTH SCIENCES / ASTRONOMY AND GEOSCIENCES

Standing on a solid past Carlos Fioravanti

At the forefront of global astrophysics: the Soar and Gemini (at rear) telescopes in the Andes; Brazil is a partner in both

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Geophysicists, geologists, geographers and astrophysicists work together to improve our understanding of the Earth’s interior, its surface, and what lies beyond

n the early afternoon of November 17, 2014, Igor Gil Pacca ran into Gelvam Hartmann in a hallway at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences (IAG), and preempting any questions, he said politely, “I’m looking at your work.” Pacca, who at 85 is one of the oldest professors at the Institute— “I come here every day”—was referring to a scientific paper they were preparing, but in a deeper sense, his comments called to mind a network of people, aspirations, equipment and institutions that started to come together at least half a century ago.

Hartmann, a 35-year-old physicist currently doing post-doctoral research, is working on paleomagnetism, a technique for analyzing variations in the Earth’s magnetic pole and ascertaining the magnetic poles of rocks thousands or millions of years old. As a member of the team headed by his former doctoral thesis advisor, Ricardo Trindade—whose own thesis

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advisor, Márcia Ernesto, did her doctoral studies under Pacca’s advisorship— Hartmann spends much of his time in the paleomagnetism laboratory, examining samples of bricks to discover, confirm or correct data on old buildings in Brazil and neighboring countries, and associating them with their respective magnetic intensities. In one of his studies, he identified a possible date--between 1561 and 1591—for one of the oldest structures in Brazil, the Cathedral of São Salvador, in the capital city of Bahia State (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 185).

Pacca was one of the first researchers to enter this field in the 1960s, when new ideas such as tectonic plate theory lent substance to the field of geophysics. He was still at the Physics Institute, where he had pursued his undergraduate and doctoral studies with Cesar Lattes. Then as a professor, he set up one of the first paleomagnetism laboratories in Brazil, in 1971, at the Physics Institute of the University of São Paulo (IF – USP). Two years later, he transferred the equipment back to IAG and moved there as a professor, on an invitation from its first direc-

tor, Giorgio Giacaglia, to train a group traffic—until it was given a more suitable of researchers in geophysics. home in Água Funda Park.

Pacca had a hand in establishing and organizing IAG, and its origins hark back Promise fulfilled to American geologist Orville Derbi, en- In the late 1960s, the then-director gineer Theodoro Sampaio, Abrahão de Moraes Swedish botanist Alberto wanted to take advanLoefgren and other former tage of university reheads of the São Paulo Geform to transform IAG ography and Geology Com- “Abrahão, I’m from an adjunct instimission, who expressed an tute into a teaching unit, interest in studying the going to fight but he died in 1970. “At climate of the state of São de Moraes’ funeral, for that Paulo in the late 19th cenUniversity President tury in order to identify institute you Miguel Reale commentthe most suitable terrain ed, “‘Abrahão, I’m going for growing coffee. The wanted,” the to fight for that institute meteorological and astroyou wanted,’” said Pacnomical instruments were university ca, who witnessed the installed in a wooden tow“ Much of president said moment. er in Jardim da Luz Park, the existence of IAG as and later on the roof of the in 1970 a USP teaching and reNormal School on Repubsearch unit,” he added, lic Square, then in a house “is tied to those words on Paulista Avenue, next to at that moment in time.” the present-day São Paulo Museum of IAG gained the desired status of teachArt—where the seismograph was unreli- ing and research unit of USP soon afterable because of vibrations from streetcar wards, in 1972.

First measurements: meteorological station atop the tower in Jardim da Luz Botanical Park, in operation from 1888 to 1894

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Photo Astronomy and Astrophysics Institute – Paulo Marques dos Santos

IAG in a home of its own: one of the buildings of the São Paulo Astronomical Observatory in 1947, in the Água Funda neighborhood

A short time later, Pacca invited physicist Marcelo Assumpção, who was then at the Physics Institute, to hire on at IAG, then do his doctoral studies in seismology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and subsequently join the group of geophysics professors at IAG. Assumpção went, came back and taught a lot of classes. His research work included examination of the variation in thickness of the Earth’s crust in Brazilian territory, in collaboration with colleagues from other Brazilian universities.

Their work has yielded a compilation of data that help predict and explain earthquakes. One of his current endeavors involves strengthening the Brazilian seismographic network, which consists of institutions in several Brazilian states.

The network, now in the final stage of installation, will monitor Brazil’s entire territory and generate data on the Earth’s internal structure.

Pedro Leite da Silva Dias and his future wife, Maria Assunção Faus da Silva Dias, having recently graduated with degrees in mathematics, also went abroad for their graduate studies—in this case, atmospheric sciences in the United States—and then joined the group of professors at IAG. They went on to lead research groups in meteorology and cli-

mate change. In addition to his extensive scientific work, Dias is director of the National Scientific Computing Laboratory (LNCC) in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro State. After seven years in the position, he misses teaching and looks forward to a time when he can return to the classroom. “USP is the closest thing to the fountain of youth,” he commented.

“Teaching class and discovering talented new students! And nurturing them….”

Taking the long view

In 1974, recent physics graduate João Evangelista Steiner began his master’s studies with José Antônio de Freitas Pacheco, one of the physicists whom Abrahão de Moraes had sent off to pursue graduate studies in France. Upon his return, Pacheco established the graduate program at IAG, “an important step that accelerated the strengthening of the astrophysics program, because the students no longer needed to leave Brazil for their graduate studies,” said Steiner, who has become one of today’s leading figures in astrophysics research in Brazil. ΩUpon his return from graduate studies in the United States in 1982, Steiner became involved in long-running battles in support of improved infrastructure conditions for astronomy research.

The first battle involved the creation of the National Astrophysics Laboratory (LNA), “for all Brazilian astrophysicists to use on an equal basis,” he said. The LNA opened the way for the formation of a strong community of astrophysicists, and this enabled Brazil to use two international telescopes—the Gemini and the Soar—that today are at the forefront of astronomical research.” Steiner, along with Jacques Lepine of USP and colleagues at other institutions, was involved in the negotiations for Brazil’s participation in the Gemini and Soar observatories, both of which are in operation in Chile.

“We are now beginning a new phase in Brazilian astrophysics,” says Steiner, referring to the building of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), on which FAPESP-supported construction will begin in 2015 in the Chilean Andes. The GMT is expected to enter into full operation in 2021, with a light-collection area 100 times greater and spatial resolution 10 times greater than that of the Hubble space telescope. “We’re leaving a legacy for future generations of astrophysicists.”

Several examples illustrate how the researchers in IAG’s Department of Astrophysics are taking the long view. Beatriz Barbuy identified some of the oldest stars in the Milky Way—12.5 billion years— pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 47

and Augusto Damineli, after a tenacious, decades-long effort, explained the structure of the star Eta Carinae. Joined by his team, Damineli explained possible reasons for why it loses light every five and a half years (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 203, 206 and 191).

The ages of South America

Many professors at IAG work collaboratively with those at the Geosciences Institute (IGc), which had its origins in the geology curriculum offered at the Alameda Glete Mansion, one of the first USP facilities, formally established as an independent teaching unit in 1969 and now located on the main campus in São Paulo. “We started out together,” says Umberto Cordani, a geologist who taught classes in the early days at IAG while he was helping to set up the first laboratories at his own institute, IGc. Cordani still works quite a bit at the age of 76. In July 2014 he went to Rio Branco, in the state of Acre, to speak at one of the presentations at the annual meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC), about deep-focus earthquakes, based on the work of Marcelo Assumpção. These earthquakes originate 600 kilometers (km) beneath the Earth’s surface and can be felt as far away as western Amazonia. Cordani oversees studies such as the one by his doctoral student Carlos Ganade de Araujo, now a researcher at the Geological Survey of Brazil, whose

thesis resulted in an article published in with the groups led by Thomas Fairchild, Nature Communication in October 2014. Claudio Riccomini and Marly Babinski, In the paper, Araujo, Cordani and other to name a few.

In 1964, Cordani and Kawashita were geologists suggest that the erosion of a chain of mountains at least 2,500 meters all but new graduates when they joined long across the Brazilian Northeast and the first team at the recently-inaugurated West Africa may have produced the nu- geochronology laboratory—now the Centrients necessary for the hitherto poorly ter for Geochronology Research, located explained explosion of life forms that on Alameda Glete Avenue—through a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) occurred 600 million years ago.

The rock samples from Africa and grant awarded to John Reynolds of the University of California at Brazil used in this study Berkeley. “The laboratory were analyzed at the was the seed of everything High Resolution Geothat has happened since, chronology Laboratoand a lot has happened,” ry—a mirrored-glass Ross’ Cordani said. building to the right of Us i n g ro c k s a m p l e the IGc entrance—in classification dating analysis and paan instrument known succeeded Ab’ leomagnetism measuremostly by the name ments, researchers from SHRIMP (Sensitive Saber’s, which IGc, including Benjamim High Resolution Ion MiBley de Brito Neves, Wilcroprobe). The labora- in turn son Teixeira and Colombo tory, opened in 2010, is Tassinari, and from IAG, one of the most sophis- succeeded such as Igor Pacca and ticated mineral-dating Azevedo’s, Manoel D’Agrella, have facilities in South Amerreconstructed the geoica, and it represents the and all of logical history of ancient continuation of geosupercontinents that have chronology, a line of re- them were since broken apart, such search that Cordani and as Rodínia and Gondwana, physicist Koji Kawashi- from USP and the still-visible South ta began to develop 50 America, formed out of years ago and that now constitutes one of the Institute’s prin- rocky cores 3 to 3.5 billion years old that cipal research areas, along with other are now located in the states of Bahia subjects such as primitive life on Earth, and Pará. These were joined by other, newer, blocks of rock 600 million years old that now form much of the Brazilian Northeast, Southeast and South, as well as other, even more recent rocks 10 million years old, such as the ones found in the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 188).

Climates of the past and present

Unique instrument in South America: SHRIMP determines the age of minerals

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Researchers at IGc are also working with colleagues at the Biology and Oceanography institutes to reconstruct climate changes that have occurred in South America on a more modest time scale, the last few thousand years. Geologist Francisco Cruz, a member of the new generation of professors and researchers at IGc (he was hired in 2009), is studying the variation in the ratio of oxygen isotopes in cave rocks in order to see, for example, how rainfall has fluctuated with respect to summer solar radiation and

Photos léo ramos

climatic conditions over the oceans, from thousands of years to just a few decades ago (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 111).

Anyone doing climate research today cannot forget Carlos Augusto de Figueiredo Monteiro, a geographer who helped lay the foundations of climatology in Brazil, encapsulated in the book Clima e excepcionalismo [Climate and exceptionalism] (Ed. UFSC, 1991). This and other books are the culmination of 40 years of pioneering work completed in 1987, when Monteiro retired from USP (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 171).

The Department of Geography had its roots in France, inasmuch as its first professors in the 1930s were the Frenchmen Pierre Deffontaines and Pierre Monbeig.

Today the Department continues to be home to researchers and professors who study not only climate, but also the forms of, and potential for, land occupation in Brazil. They use mapping surveys or conceptual approaches, such as those offered by geographer Milton Santos (who died in 2001 at the age of 75) in a series of books including A natureza do espaço [The nature of space] (Hucitec, 1996), and by Antonio Carlos Robert de Moraes, who also authored books now regarded as essential, such as Geografia: pequena história crítica

[Geography: A small critical history] (Hucitec, 1994) and Ideologias geográficas – Espaço, cultura e política no Brasil [Geographic ideologies – Space, culture and politics in Brazil] (Hucitec, 1988).

TYPES OF TERRAIN

In the next few months, the government of the state of Paraná is expected to unveil its ecological and economic zoning plan. The plan will delimit the areas of the state that will be zoned for industry, farming, and cities, “based on the potentialities and fragility of each region,” said Jurandyr Ross, a geographer and professor at USP who was a member of the team that drew up the plan.

Ross started as a professor hired in November 1982 when he replaced Aziz Ab’ Saber, who had retired three months earlier (Ab’ Saber died in 2012), and took over his geomorphology laboratory. Utilizing knowledge gained from the 15 years he spent on the Radambrasil project, a pioneering mapping survey of the entire Brazilian landmass, Ross reworked Brazil’s terrain classification system, and in 1990 he published his own version, more detailed than Ab’ Saber’s which had been widely circulated since 1958 and had itself succeeded an earlier 1940s version

IGc and IAG professors from several generations: (standing, from left) Celso de Barros Gomes, Vicente Antonio Vitorio Girardi, Adolpho José Melfi, Antonio Carlos Rocha Campos, Georg Robert Sadowsky, Benjamim Bley de Brito Neves, Umberto Giuseppe Cordani and Igor Ivory Gil Pacca; (seated) Setembrino Petri, Kenitiro Suguio, Marta Silvia Maria Mantovani, José Moacir Vianna Coutinho and Jorge Silva Bettencourt

by Aroldo de Azevedo, a USP professor and author of textbooks used widely in elementary and middle school.

Ross developed a classification of terrain types, with six taxons or units of classification, from the general to the specific. This approach was used initially in a geomorphological mapping survey of the state of São Paulo with his USP colleague Isabel Cristina Moroz, and presented in 1998 (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 35). “This terrain taxonomy was used later for the geomorphological map of the state of Paraná and in the Alto Paraguai Basin,” said Ross. In later years he was a consultant to the Ministry of the Environment, where he sometimes encountered his colleague Robert de Moraes, also a consultant—one more indication that the knowledge generated at USP was spreading throughout Brazil. n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 49

OCEANOGRAPHY

Double strength: the Alpha Delphini (smaller vessel) alongside the Alpha-Crucis, anchored in the Port of Santos

Back to sea

M

Carlos Fioravanti and Fabrício Marques

ay 30, 2012 in the Port of Santos, on the coast of São Paulo State, marked the beginning of a new era of oceanographic research in that state.

The day featured the public presentation and inauguration of the Alpha-Crucis, the oceanographic vessel acquired by FAPESP for the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo (IO-USP). The new ship will replace the Professor W. Besnard, USP’s first oceanographic vessel, which made dozens of trips—including six to Antarctica in the 1980s—between 1967 and 2008, when it was decommissioned.

The history of the acquisition of the AlphaCrucis began in 2009, when Michel Mahiques

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assumed the directorship of the IO and found a disheartening scenario: a fire aboard the Professor Besnard had put it out of service. With no feasible way to refurbish it and no money to buy a new ship, Mahiques decided to purchase a used ship and adapt it for use in oceanographic research. On his nineteenth visit to research vessels for sale in several countries, he found the Moana Wave, a ship that had served the University of Hawaii, was purchased by a shipyard in Seattle and was then leased to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The $4 million price tag was reasonable. A group of

New oceanographic vessel advances research on climate, ocean currents, sediments and biodiversity along the Brazilian coast

Photos Eduardo Cesar

Before departure: team prepares cylinders for collecting water samples

engineers and crew members from the international cruise on the afternoon IO visited the ship while it was anchored of December 1, 2012. On board were 20 on the Chilean coast and liked what they researchers led by Edmo Campos of the saw. FAPESP approved the purchase or- IO, and 19 crew members. The voyage der, on the condition that USP provide was part of an international program for crews and maintenance. The final called SAMOC (South Atlantic Meriocost of the ship, $11 million, was shared dional Overturning Circulation), whose principal purpose was to develop and

by FAPESP and USP. The 64-meters-long, 11-meters-wide implement a system for monitoring changes in the meridioship was rechristened nal transport of mass and the Alpha-Crucis—the heat—and climate change star that represents the in general—in the South state of São Paulo on the Atlantic. Even the slightBrazilian flag. It was re- Sand and mud est change in the amount furbished, fitted with of heat in the ocean has a new equipment and from the Rio major effect on the Earth’s then had to make its de la Plata climate,” Campos said, way through a bureaushortly before leaving on cratic labyrinth before travel 2,000 the expedition. it could leave Seattle.

“We are finally going “Sometimes I thought km to the coast to measure the current we’d never manage to variability—in a project get the ship out of the at São financed by Brazil, ArUnited States, there Sebastião gentina and the United were so many obstacles States—using a suitable to overcome,” Mahiques ship,” commented Arrecalls. The IO—which gentine researcher Silwas established in 1946 as the Paulista Institute of Oceanography, via Garzoli, Chief Scientist at NOAA’s absorbed into USP in 1951 as a research Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorounit and transformed into an academic logical Laboratory . It was also the first unit of the university in 1972—gained new voyage undertaken by the Alpha-Crucis impetus with the ship, which has been to collect water samples and take temused by its own teams in two FAPESP perature measurements in deep water, programs—Global Climate Change and up to six kilometers below the surface Biota-FAPESP—as well as teams from of the ocean (see Pesquisa FAPESP Isother São Paulo State institutions (see sue No. 203).

Mahiques led one of the expeditions Pesquisa FAPESP Issue No. 195).

The Alpha-Crucis departed for its first in February 2013 to collect sediments

from the ocean floor along the São Paulo State coast, to reveal the climatic, environmental and evolutionary history of the region. He and researchers from Germany and Uruguay ascertained that the fine grains of sand, mud and organic material carried along by the Rio de la Plata and caught up in ocean currents travel nearly 2,000 kilometers to the coast at São Sebastião (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 206 and 215).

One year after going into service, the Alpha-Crucis was joined by the oceanographic vessel Alpha Delphini, built entirely at the Indústria Naval do Ceará shipyard (INACE), also with FAPESP support, to boost the state’s oceanographic research capability. In July 2013, a month after arriving in São Paulo, the Alpha Delphini made its first scientific expedition off the coast of Pernambuco State, between the island of Itamaracá and the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, passing through the Recife coastal zone. The objective of the expedition was to assess the role of Pernambuco’s oceanic and coastal regions as carbon sinks or emitters and to identify which zones act one way or the other.

The teams from the Oceanographic Institute have also researched other topics, such as maritime currents, geological evolution and the impacts of pollution in the waters around the island of São Sebastião, the origin and consequences of beach erosion and the diversity of whales and dolphins along the São Paulo State coast (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issues No. 51, 92 and 218). n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 51

Techn Brazil’s first chip was developed by students and professors in USP’s electrical engineering department

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hnology pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 53

Engineering

Foundations of Knowledge Evanildo da Silveira and Marcos de Oliveira

Naval engineering: tank reproduces ocean conditions on a smaller scale for platform and ship tests

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The Polytechnic School fosters technological solutions to support Brazil’s development

n line with Brazil’s technological development demands, the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (Poli-USP) has sought knowledge and solutions for current issues in each phase of its 120-year history. Today, the important question of sustainability is often addressed in its 103 laboratories and 15 departments. Poli has projects that will be especially beneficial in civil engineering—highly dependent on raw materials based on natural resources—as it adapts to new trends. The objective is to enable companies and civil engineers to incorporate more efficient, clean practices, make better use of inputs, and reduce waste and wastefulness, in addition to recycling the products and remnants of construction processes.

The USP-Poli Department of Civil Engineering (PCC) is consolidating these new trends and has had a fundamental role over the last few years in the path towards sustainability. Many of the civil engineering innovations used today in Brazil are the result of the work of its researchers. “These include the incorporation of plant fibers instead of asbestos in roof tiles and the use of a new type of cement, developed in the late 1990s, which uses slag, a highly polluting waste from steel plants, as its main ingredient,” says civil engineer Vahan Agopyan, a professor at Poli, who is now vice president of USP. He led this research project, carried out with funds from FAPESP. The slag was not being used and was piling up in mounds up to 30 meters high near steel plants, causing serious environmental

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1

Drafting boards, T-squares, pencils and compasses, civil engineering before computers and without a scientific view of materials, an approach that would become common after the 1970s

the 2014 Folha ranking due to their tradition and research excellence. In addition to civil engineering, electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering were each ranked in first place in their respective fields. In total, in the seven engineering fields listed in the ranking, Poli was first in four and second in another two, environmental engineering and production engineering. Poli does not have a program in the seventh category, control and automation.

Electronic systems

In electrical engineering, more precisely in the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering (PSI), there is a large variety of projects underway, such as the cardiochip (a chip to monitor heart signals), an electronic circuit that can help the deaf hear, software for low-cost mobile phones, virtual reality infrastructure for the Navy, and a 3D cinema system with integrated chair movements.

More than 40 years ago, when the PSI had a different name, it was responsible for developing the first integrated circuits, better known as chips, and even the first Brazilian computer, named “Ugly Duckling,” under the coordination of Professor Antônio Hélio Guerra Vieira. Electrical engineer João Antônio Zuffo, who earned his undergraduate degree from Poli in 1963 as member of the third class

of students in the field, knows the story well, since he was a part of it. Today, he has retired from his professor position, but still works full-time. “In 1960, the Electrical Engineering Department was established with two options, electronic and electrical engineering,” he recalls. “In 1962 and 1963 I had a FAPESP scholarship, as a student.” Shortly thereafter, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Microelectronics Laboratory (LME) and Digital Systems Laboratory (LSD) were founded and, later, in 1975, the Integrated Systems Laboratory (LSI) was established.

All three still exist. Before that, in 1971, Zuffo developed the first Brazilian chip.

“It was as fast as the quickest chips at the time, but was never produced industrially, although it was viable,” he says.

The year 1972 marked PSI’s triumph, with the construction of the Ugly Duckling. Its development started with the professors in the electrical engineering program. A workshop was set up and the team itself manufactured the components and the integrated circuits for the computer’s memory, which reached 8 bits.

The device was presented to the public in July 1972. “Neither the chip nor the duckling went into production because, at the time, there was no industry. The investment needed was very high and would have had to come from a company,” says Zuffo.

Photos 1 ESALQ Archives 2 miguel boyayan 3 léo ramos

problems. Today, this type of cement is widely used in construction. “Over time, its manufacture has used up the slag that had accumulated throughout Brazil,” he says. “The incorporation of this material into cement was already being done in other countries, but we carried out a study in order to understand the chemical aspects and operation of the mixture of cement with slag.”

The origin of this new attitude towards sustainability in civil engineering goes back many years. According to Agopyan, it dates from the start of the 1970s. “At that time there was a change in approach, from an empirical view of construction to a scientific one,” he says. “From that point on, foreign books began to introduce us to a scientific view of materials. When I did my PhD at King’s College in London, from 1979 to 1982, I was one of the first Brazilians to study with professors who had this scientific approach.”

The first and main result of this change in approach was that engineers came to understand building materials. “We started to study how concrete works, for example. This allowed us to increase its resistance from 20 megapascals (MPa) to as much as 120 MPa [Pascal is the standard unit for pressure and stress and is equal to the force of 1 Newton (N) applied uniformly on a surface measuring 1 m2], and enables the construction of tall buildings, like we see in São Paulo. This landmark transformation occurred in parallel worldwide.” What changes are the materials and the raw inputs used in each country. “Among current research topics is the study of the optimization of concrete production in order to reduce the consumption of cement,” says Agopyan.

Teaching and research in civil engineering led Poli to the top spot in the ranking of Brazilian universities published by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo in 2014. The civil engineering department was one of the first established in the Polytechnic School by the founder and first dean Antonio Francisco de Paula Souza, who taught classes on the strength of materials and the stability of structures to the first class of civil engineering students in 1894, one year after the department was founded. Poli was incorporated into USP in 1934, the year in which the university was founded.

Three other engineering departments at Poli came in first in their categories in

In the specific case of LSI, the initial Poli’s adaptation to Brazil’s objective was stronger development of recent demands is visible in graduate research, on the same level as oil exploration in deep and the most advanced research in the world. ultra-deep waters, such as “When we made our chip, it was only in pre-salt exploration. The 12 years after the first had been made in partnership between the Polithe United States,” recalls Zuffo. “Not USP Department of Naval and many countries were doing this. Not even Ocean Engineering (PNV) and Japan had a microelectronics industry Petrobras is contributing to then.” The first virtual reality projects the success of exploration in and parallel data processing occurred on the waters off the states of Rio LSI workbenches. “In the latter case, the de Janeiro and São Paulo. The result was a super microcomputer later development of the Numerimanufactured by Itautec,” he says. cal Test Tank (TPN) in 2002 The Brazilian digital TV system, which and the inauguration of the 2 is spreading throughout Latin America, physical tank in 2009, called contains important contributions made the Hydrodynamic Calibrator The Ugly Duckling was the first computer made in

by LSI, principally those (CH)—similar Brazil based on a research project. A workshop was allowing the signal to to an ultra-so- set up in the electrical engineering department and students manufactured components be picked up by mobile phisticated phones and other moswimming pool bile devices. The Digi- Simulations in measuring 14 m (meters) tational cluster we have here. We betal Cave is not as wideby 14 m with a depth of 4 gan with 120 processors and now have spread, but its scientif- the numerical m, capable of producing almost 2,500,” says Kazuo Nishimoto, ic importance could be waves and other ocean who was head of the department from tank are even greater. It is a room conditions on a smaller July 2010 to July 2014. with projection from five essential to scale—were fundamental Before starting exploration, every opsides—four walls plus the to Petrobras’ exploration eration is simulated on the TPN computceiling—controlled by a pre-salt of pre-salt oil, which can ers, some calibrated using the CH, and parallel supercomputer be at a depth of 6 km (ki- viewed in a virtual reality room. The TPN developed by the labora- exploration lometers), under a layer is used to simulate things ranging from tory’s researchers. It can of at least 3 km of water. the anchoring of oil tankers—known as hold up to six people, who One system complements FPSOs (Floating Production, Storage and can interact with the simthe other and, together, Offloading)—on the high seas using risers ulated world via computer. But it is not they can simulate various environmental that tie them to the ocean floor, to drilljust a curiosity. Its applications extend to and operational conditions under which ing the salt layer, under which petroleum several fields of research, such as engi- ships and platforms operate. “There is found. “Without the TPN and these neering, medicine, astronomy, astrophys- are many physical tanks in Norway, the simulations, pre-salt exploration would ics, biology and chemistry and even enter- Netherlands and Japan, but there is no be impossible.” tainment, such as games, photorealistic laboratory that uses a physical and nuForeseeing the evolution of offshore oil visualizations and interactive movies. merical tank together like the compu- exploration, Professor Celio Taniguchi, then head of the department, a position he held from 1984 to 1992—before becoming dean of the school from 1994 to 1998— signed a cooperation agreement with the Petrobras Leopoldo Américo Miguez de Mello Research and Development Center (Cenpes) for the development of technology and offshore structures for deep water. “Until then, our department focused on ships,” recalls Nishimoto. “After the agreement with Cenpes, we started working on offshore drilling and oil production platforms, risers for anchoring them and submarine pipelines for transporting oil.

That is why, in 1986, the PNV, which until then had been called the Department of 3 Naval Engineering, added “and Ocean” to its name. n In 1971, the first chip made in Brazil. As fast as chips manufactured at the time pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 57

Agronomy

Among the best in the world Dinorah Ereno

Cultivation in vitro of eucalyptus seedlings at the biotechnology laboratory

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ESALQ comes in fifth in international ranking of agricultural sciences institutions

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eduardo cesar

ounded thanks to the inspiration and determination of Luiz Vicente de Souza Queiroz, who donated the São João da Montanha plantation to the State of São Paulo in 1892 for the establishment of an agricultural school—officially inaugurated on June 3, 1901—the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ) was classified, in November 2014, as one of the five best schools in the world in the field of agricultural sciences by the publisher U.S. News and World Report. Ahead of ESALQ were Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands, the University of California, Davis and Cornell University in the United States, and the University of Agriculture in China. The factors that contributed to its classification are its global and regional reputation, number of publications and citations,

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Photos 1 ESALQ Archives 2 eduardo cesar 3 heraldo negri / bug

and international collaborations. On the 3,825-hectare campus, which accommodates 250 professors, 550 employees and more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students, towering trees and centuries-old buildings send you back in time. With more than 13,900 graduates, it is the first Brazilian institution of higher learning to have graduated more than 11,000 agronomists.

The activities and research carried out at the university have worldwide repercussions. “Some months, we receive up to 35 groups visiting from foreign academic and research institutions who want to see our work and learn from what we do here,” says Professor Carlos Eduardo Cerri, president 1 of the ESALQ Research Committee and a specialist in environmental sciences.

ESALQ students in class studying agricultural pests such as that of the cotton plant “We receive invitations to take part in cooperaalso an important ESALQ more than 3,300,000 hectares of fields tion agreements all the contribution to Brazilian throughout Brazil are controlled with time.” Some lines of reagribusiness. search being developed Institution this little wasp imported from Trinidad Biological control, and Tobago in 1971,” says Parra. Anothnow began in the 1980s. which uses natural en- er line of research begun by Parra with They are historical as- pioneered emies to reduce pest in- the parasitic wasp of the genus Trichosessment series, such as the use festations in crops, is an- gramma, also in the 1980s, resulted in studies of soil, vegetation other line of research in the release of T. galloi on the market by and water carbon bal- of natural which the institution has the company Bug Agentes Biológicos, ance. In the terrestrial made important contri- in Piracicaba. The insect was named in biosphere, carbon can enemies butions, due to its pio- honor of Gallo’s pioneering spirit. be fixed in soil, in water, neering spirit and exand in the gaseous form, to control In 2012, a startup founded in 2001 by cellent results. “The De- ESALQ graduate students was chosen as when it becomes an enpests partment of Entomology one of the 50 most innovative companies vironmental problem beand Acarology is known in the world by the technology magazine cause greenhouse gases, for its work in this area,” Fast Company. T. galloi is a different type such as carbon dioxide, says Professor José Ro- of parasite, because the wasp attacks the methane and nitrous oxide, contain carbon and nitrogen and berto Postali Parra, former dean of the eggs of the sugarcane borer, inoculating can cause climate change. On the oth- institution and head of the biological them with its own eggs and preventing er hand, activities such as agriculture, control laboratory, which is part of the the insect from hatching and attacking forestry and livestock raising have the department. “In the 1940s and 1950s, the plant in its caterpillar stage. The comability to remove carbon from the at- Professor Domingos Gallo began working pany’s innovation was to develop an efmosphere. “There are many factors that with Brazilian flies that are a parasite of ficient and economically viable method affect this balance and we need to estab- the sugarcane borer (Diatraea sacchara- for breeding T. galloi. lish standards to try and help improve it, lis) in order to combat this pest in sugSugarcane is also the focus of research in order to sequester more carbon from arcane fields,” he recounts. “He created led by Professor Helaine Carrer in the the atmosphere and emit less gas,” says biological control culture and we have biotechnology laboratory. She is also Cerri. Experiments that evaluate the expanded on his work.” At the time, pest coordinator of the ESALQ Internationstorage and release of carbon in soil, control was done by hand, with the flies al Graduate Program in Plant Cellular vegetation and water are carried out released in the field. and Molecular Biology. “With genetic Parra’s group developed an artificial engineering, we can alter the metabolin different regions of Brazil. “I believe that ESALQ’s contribution is very im- diet in order to breed the insect in the ic pathways of plants and produce new portant because, based on research done laboratory and also found other natu- plants with different characteristics,” she in the past, other institutions are also ral enemies of sugarcane pests and im- stresses. One of the studies performed in showing interest in the subject.” The ported them. In the 1980s, he began to the laboratory resulted in a genetically introduction and adaptation of breeds work with Cotesia flavipes, a wasp that modified plant more tolerant of water of animals for milk, meat and eggs was is a larval parasite of the borer. “Today, stress than the varieties used currently.

“It survived a total lack of water for two weeks longer than commercial varieties, a significant result,” says Carrer, who participates in the FAPESP Bioenergy Research Program (BIOEN). Genetically modified plants are currently being tested in greenhouses.

To achieve resistance to water stress, the researchers used genes from the Arabidopsis plant. The introduction of new genes in plants in done with the aid of the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, found in the soil. In nature, the plant uses this device to produce compounds of interest. “Since this bacterium does not have much affinity with plants like sugarcane, wheat and rice, we can use another strategy to introduce genes into their cells,” she explains. A physical process could be used to accomplish this task. DNA fragments wrapped in gold particles can be introduced into the cells of the sugarcane plant quickly and, thus, become part of the plant’s genome.

The plants obtained in this way have a new gene.

“Biotechnology, an important ESALQ field, has contributed to the development of agriculture,” stresses Carrer.

“It is a new method that adds value to classical genetic improvement.” At the institution, about 20 laboratories work with biotechnology, on genetic studies, the interaction between plants and insects, microorganisms, the formation of fibers in plants, resistance to disease, water stress and the biochemistry of compound formation. The indicators for agricultural commodity prices, a market reference, are the result of daily surveys

conducted by the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics (CEPEA), part of the Department of Economics, Business Administration and Sociology, on the principal supply chains for agricultural raw materials and their derivatives.

ESALQ has seven undergraduate programs—business administration, biological sciences, food sciences, economics, agronomy, forest engineering and environmental management—and 16 graduate programs, with the graduate degree in bioenergy being a joint program offered by USP, São Paulo State University (Unesp) and the University of Campinas (Unicamp). “A recent development, the first graduate program offered by the three universities together is an innovative approach in the state of São Paulo,” says Cerri. Since USP was chosen to be the host university, ESALQ is responsible for the program. ESALQ is also home to the International Graduate Program together with Rutgers University in New Jersey and Ohio State University. Cerri stresses that, of the 16 graduate programs, most have received the highest Capes scores, 6 or 7 out of 7, meaning that they are considered to be excellent. Among them are the graduate programs in entomology, genetics and plant improvement, animal science and pasture and soils and plant nutrition, with scores of 7 out of 7. “We are proud of these scores, the result of achievements over many years.”

A pioneer in the implementation of graduate programs at USP, ESALQ started its courses on September 15, 1964, in

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Cotesia flavipes parasite of the sugarcane borer

2 2 Diaphorina citri, an insect that attacks orange groves and causes the disease called greening

the areas of experimentation and statistics; plant pathology; genetics and plant improvement; mechanics, engines and agricultural machinery; plant nutrition; and soils. Since 1966, when the first master’s thesis was defended, more than 5,500 master’s degrees and 2,700 PhD degrees have been awarded. “ESALQ has some peculiarities that make it similar to institutions in developed countries like the United States, such as the donation of large areas of land by former students for research,” says Parra. For example, one of the plantations donated in the city of Londrina, Paraná State, has 4,840 hectares and 6,000 heads of cattle. Another area, near the campus, has 20 hectares preserved with native species. “It was donated with the stipulation that it be used for research by students of environmental management,” he says.

The results obtained in a series of studies conducted at the institution are used for public policy decision making.

“Some federal government programs were established based on the results of master’s theses, doctoral dissertations and publications that were produced here at the institution, mostly supported by FAPESP,” says Cerri. One is the Program for the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Agriculture— or the ABC Program, aimed at farmers.

“We also took part in the definition of FAPESP programs, such as those for Research on Global Climate Change, Biota and BIOEN.” ■ pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 61

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SOCIAL SCIENCES

The influence of society Márcio Ferrari

Demonstrations in Brasília against the World Cup; studies to find out how democracy works

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A charter component of USP, the FFLCH organized and systematized the practice of research and maintains an intense dialogue with the public

s a charter unit of the University of São Paulo (USP), the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH), established in 1934, has since the beginning spotlighted an investigative spirit backed by sound methodology in a country where research activities were still incipient and disorganized. The curricula in sociology and politics (which became departments under the 1968 university reform that abolished the catédra system), even though they still counted among their founders a majority of foreigners —or partly for that very reason—were designed to “discover Brazil” from the scientific and systematic standpoints.

Despite all that has changed in the past 80 years in Brazil and in the possible approaches to research within and outside the university, the investigative tradition and commitment to a permanent dialogue with society remains firm.

The Department of Sociology continues to carry out the principal lines of research that Florestan Fernandes and his disciples Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Octavio Ianni were pursuing in the 1950s and 1960s, which included race rela-

tions and the labor union movement. “In those days, people studied the major subjects, employing a macro-sociological approach—racial prejudice, for example, was being ‘discovered’ from the academic standpoint,” says Brasílio Sallum, head of the Department of Sociology, who earned his undergraduate degree in 1970.

“Today’s researchers specialize; they limit the scope of their projects. The sociological, religious, or workplace aspects of race relations are studied separately.” In political sociology, Sallum says, special attention is paid to the relationship between society and the State, a strategy he himself employed as coordinator of a recent project about the Fernando Collor administration of the early 1990s entitled Crise política e impeachment (Political Crisis and Impeachment), soon to be published in book form.

The Political Science Department researches broad fields such as comparative political theory and institutions, according to Fernando Limongi, a professor and former department head who received his undergraduate degree in 1982. “In both areas, our primary focus is

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on the functioning of the democratic po- financed by FAPESP. “At first the papers er training in sociology and the presence litical system,” Limongi says. “Today we were more like essays that defended hy- of works by Max Weber was equally as start from a much more empirical stand- potheses,” says political scientist Sergio strong.” These days, says Adorno, spepoint than in the past. But there is one Adorno, coordinator of the NEV and a cial attention is being paid to “a line of fact that changes everything: we are no director of the FFLCH. “The accumula- interpretation that emphasizes actors longer thinking about the democracy or tion of empirical studies has enabled us to more than structures; not just the type stable political regime we would like to see that the issue of inequality vis à vis the of organization, but the interactive relahave. We already have them. Now we courts involves the agencies that coordi- tionships as well.” want to find out how democracy works nate public policy.” The questions that inand what kind of results we can expect spire the center’s research are playing an Academic Soundness increasingly important role in discussions The impacts of other generations of profrom a democratic government.”

This is the focus adopted in some of of the future course of Brazil’s democratic fessors and researchers are still very the department’s principal projects, such institutions. “Violence impedes the full much felt in our department,” says Euas Instituições políticas, padrões de inte- observance of human rights, and talking nice Ostrensky, who earned her underração Executivo-Legislativo e capacidade about human rights means talking about graduate degree in philosophy in 1993 governativa (Political institutions, exec- democracy,” Adorno says. From the out- and is now a professor in the Political utive-legislative relationships and gov- set, the NEV has been concerned about Science Department. “In modern politiernment performance), Limongi’s own creating methodologies that can be used cal theory, although the manner of adproject. He has been studying Brazil’s 25 in producing reports for international or- dressing the topics and concepts being ganizations like the UN, discussed has benefited from more recent years of political democraand is in regular contact studies, the interest in venerable authors cy at the Center for Public with similar institutions in the field is the same as inspired the Policy Research (NUPP) in other countries. in an effort coordinated studies by professors Célia Quirino and Both the Political Sci- Oliveiros Ferreira [whose first papers

by Professor José Álvaro ence Department and date from the 1950s].

Moisés, who earned his Democratic the Department of Sociundergraduate degree Ferreira, regarded as one of the most ology have experienced original political thinkers in the history in 1970. “The purpose of institutions politicization. During the of the department and now a professor these studies is to measure and violence 1970s, the entire sociol- at the Pontifical Catholic University of the quality of Brazil’s deogy curriculum was set São Paulo, earned his undergraduate democracy by looking at two in Brazil are up to study the course of gree in sociology in 1950 and worked as aspects: the values that exthe bourgeois revolution a journalist at O Estado de S.Paulo from plain the behavior of our some of the in Brazil,” says Adorno. 1953-2000. He is an example of one of society, and the place that The term “bourgeois rev- the leading intellectuals who emerged institutions occupy—not current topics olution” does not, how- from the departments of sociology and only in our imaginations, being studied ever, mean an exclusive- political science of the FFLCH by combut also in the structure of ly Marxist orientation. bining academic rigor with attention to the period.”

“Marxism never domi- the lay public, refusing to shut himself According to Moisés, Limongi’s paper indicates that “from the nated; the department offered a broad- up in a university office. electoral standpoint, democracy has been strengthened, but we still need to bring representatives and their constituents closer together, “both so that the political system reflects our society (witness the glaring under-representation of women and Afro-Brazilians, for example) and so that transparency is injected into the various political/administrative jurisdictions. “The best example of the absence of such transparency is corruption, a reality that demonstrates that the instruments of control, monitoring, and oversight are not enough to prevent abuses,” Moisés says.

Another example of dialogue and interaction with society is the Center for the Study of Violence (NEV), founded in 1987 and one of the 17 Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) Lévi-Strauss visits USP in 1985: one of the founders of modern anthology 66 SPECIAL USP AT 80

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cessor, Roger Bastide, practiced a sociology that had strong connections with anthropology and psychoanalysis. Florestan Fernandes, who succeeded both of them, earned his master’s and doctoral degrees through research on anthropological subjects (…). The beautiful sociology produced by Antonio Candido was supported by a dialogue with anthropology, history, and literature.”

Antonio Candido is a typical product of the intellectual effervescence introduced into São Paulo by the FFLCH. Now Original Purpose All this takes us back to the original pur- regarded as the leading scholar of Brazilpose of the FFLCH and its plans to mod- ian literature, Candido was “above all, a ernize scientific research in Brazil. The sociologist,” according to Sergio Adorfirst director of the institution, Theodoro no. Candido is the author of one of the Augusto Ramos, a mathematician from seminal works on sociology in Brazil, Os the Polytechnic School (Poli/USP), was parceiros do rio Bonito (The partners of put in charge of contracting dozens of Rio Bonito), about the São Paulo caipiras professors from France, Italy, Germany, (backwoodsmen) who had been marginand Portugal. At the time, the school also alized—that was the title of his 1954 PhD included units on natural sciences, chem- dissertation.

Despite the heterogeneity of backistry, physics, and mathematics. In time, those areas were spun off and the school’s grounds and interests, the shared conprimary focus became the humanities. cern was to establish a foundation and enhance appreciation Today, it has 11 deof the various bodpartments: Classical ies of knowledge, as Letters, Modern Letobserved in relation ters, Oriental Letters, to the Political SciLinguistics, Literary ence Department by Theory, Philosophy, Álvaro de Vita, who History, Geography, earned his underAnthropology, Socigraduate degree in ology, and Political 1981 and heads that Science. department. “The In social sciences three major areas and philosophy, the of the department’s “foreign mission” research—Brazilian was almost entirely politics, political theFrench—so much so ory and thought, and that in the early years, international relaFrench was the pre3 tions—began to take dominant language of the classroom. In so- Frenchman Roger Bastide in 1938: an interest in definitive shape back in the 1930s, under ciology, the professors African religious and race relations in Brazil the politics chair who were imported established by Paul were either already established in their countries of origin Abousse-Bastide. Its central intellectual or came here to carry out some interna- figure in the 1950s and early 1960s was tionally recognized work. One of these Lourival Gomes Machado,” de Vita says.

“Already present were concerns of a thewas Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Even José de Souza Martins, writing oretical-methodological nature, with the in 2011, pointed out the humanistic and autonomy of political science in relation multidisciplinary nature of that genera- to law—and especially to its sister field, tion of pioneers. “Claude Lévi-Strauss, sociology. Later generations inherited the founder of the chair in sociology and one same commitments to rigor in the study of of the founders of modern anthropology, politics, whether Brazilian or internationwas a philosopher by training. His suc- al, and the theory of political thinking.” n Fernandes, former minister of culture Francisco Weffort (sociologist), São Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad, an associate professor in the Political Science Department, and sociologist Glauco Arbix, a member of the National Council of Technology between 2007 and 2011 and responsible for the 2002 “Letter to the Brazilian people,” that marked the start of the campaign by the Workers Party (PT) candidate for the presidency, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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photos 1 André Dusek/Estadão Content/AE 2 Antonio Lúcio/Estadão Content/AE 3 File photo//Estadão Content/AE

Florestan Fernandes speaks at USP in 1958: educator of generations of sociologists

One of the pioneers at the FFLCH, Roger Bastide, author of the classic As religiões africanas no Brasil (1958) (African Religions in Brazil), wrote regularly for the São Paulo press about art, religious beliefs, and race relations—fundamental topics in the tradition of the Department of Sociology. Like the great majority of the members of the foreign mission at USP, Bastide did not come to Brazil to impose a cosmopolitan and categorical vision, but rather to investigate. In a review written for Pesquisa FAPESP, one of the leading Brazilian sociologists, José de Souza Martins, who graduated from FFLCH in 1964, said his professor “had come from a Europe saturated with reason and was tired of it.” According to Martins, Bastide found Brazil to be “a laboratory for discovering a side of the human condition that reason had hidden and repressed.

There was an entire country to explore and, over time, he not only thought about it but also became committed to making it more modern and less unjust. Even during the period of the military dictatorship, with its effort to inhibit critical intellectual production, demonstrated at its most extreme point in the 1960s when professors were stripped of their political rights, the courses in sociology and political science trained personnel who would later become extremely important figures in the public sphere. Among these were former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, constituent assembly deputy Florestan

pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 67

Plato and Aristotle (at center) in Rafael’s fresco The School of Athens: ideas of the two great philosophers of ancient Greece become topics of research

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Philosophy

Demanding reading A disciplined analysis of textual sources has been one of the department’s hallmarks, from the time of its French founders to that of its present researchers

wikimedia commons

Márcio Ferrari

T

he three FAPESP-funded thematic projects underway in the field of philosophy at the University of São Paulo demonstrate the breadth of the department’s activities in the university’s School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH). One of the projects focuses on classical Greek philosophy, another is about science, technology and society, and the third investigates the development of the ideas of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). “One of the characteristics of our research is the balance we achieve between topics and periods of study,” explains Roberto Bolzani Filho, a 1985 graduate and current department head who, under the mentorship of project coordinator Professor Marco Zingano, is one of the researchers contributing to the thematic project titled Plato, Aristotle and their Influence in Antiquity.

The project’s main objective is to study the central themes of Plato and Aristotle that left a profound mark in antiquity, in principally two key areas: metaphysics and ethics. Both philosophers share important ideas about the nature of knowledge, the world, and our actions, and, in general terms, maintain a pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 69

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Wittgenstein: a project about the evolution of the philosopher’s ideas

realistic perspective of matters eminently founded on reason. However, Aristotle— who had been a pupil of Plato—broke with his former mentor to become a fierce critic of Platonism, presenting an alternative to his master’s thought. The project looks at this opposition between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism up to the time when eclecticism gained momentum in an attempt to harmonize the two philosophical views.

A second thematic project—Origin and significance of technoscience: on relations among science, technology and society—examines topics that lie at the meeting ground of epistemology, ethics, and politics. “The project is interested in crucial and very current themes, like the hegemony of agribusiness and geneticallymodified agriculture, as well as sustainable proposals like agro-ecology,” says Pablo Mariconda, the project’s principal investigator. “We are also interested in matters related to the divide between public and private knowledge, the antiscientific aspect of the techno-scientific practices of multinational corporations vested in health and agriculture, and ethical problems in connection with the practice of eugenics in human genetics,” he adds. According to Mariconda, the 70 SPECIAL USP AT 80

research not only defends those positions that are critical of these approaches, but also serves to contribute to the dialog by putting forward a proposal for applying science to public life in a way that makes it more responsive to the development of alternative approaches that are more socially and environmentally sustainable and less beholden to the interests of capital and markets.

A detailed description of the evolution of the ideas of one of last century’s most important thinkers is the primary objective of the thematic project titled The Middle Wittgenstein, and is being carried out at the FLLCH, despite the fact that the project coordinator Bento Prado Neto, son of Bento Prado Jr., teaches at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar). Scheduled to conclude in mid2015, the project is conducting a thorough study of the evolution of Wittgenstein’s philosophy from the early 1930’s. The changes that took place during this period provide a vantage point from which to better understand his 1921 work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, from the philosopher’s initial phase and up to the more mature philosophical work of the Austrian thinker. Wittgenstein launched this second phase with his

Maugüé and the French

The thematic projects provide an understanding of much of the research that is now underway at the USP philosophy department, but important influences can be traced far back in the department’s history. Some look to the first years of the program—to 1935, the year after its founding—when it was under the mentorship of Jean Maugüé, a memorable figure in the department until 1943, when he left for North Africa to fight alongside fellow Frenchmen during 1 World War II. Gilda de Mello e Souza, his student and future professor of aesthetics at the department, said at its 1973 inaugural ceremony that “Maugüé was not just a professor but a way of walking and talking” and “a way of approaching subjects.”

He was, in other words, a “style” (according to Bolzani’s definition) introduced to the department by Maugüé and his compatriots, especially Martial Guéroult, who taught at USP from 1947 to 1953. According to Mello e Souza, this style amounted to a habit of “presenting to students, in a spirit of loyalty, a well-defined topic, backed by updated bibliographic source material.” Textbooks would be a thing of the past as students relied exclusively on a methodical reading of original philosophical texts. “At the time,” adds Bolzini, “the idea of free thinking lent itself to a very eclectic philosophy, a sort of incoherent group of literati and humanists. It was necessary to establish a disciplined way of thinking. A number of approaches to the study of philosophy are practiced today in the department, but the notion of discipline endures.”

“The essay—more to do with the history of ideas, characteristic of French philosophy—has always been influential in the department,” says Pablo Mariconda, 1971 graduate and now principal

Photos 1 Photo Researchers / Latinstock 2 Matuiti Mayezo / Folha imagem

Some features of the philosophy studied at USP can be traced far back to the program’s beginnings in the 1930s

Blue Book—dictated in 1933 to his students at Cambridge University—and reached his peak with Philosophical Investigations, which was published posthumously.

investigator for the thematic project titled Origin and significance of technoscience: on relations among science, technology and society. The project, scheduled to end in June 2016, particularly in light of the contemporaneity of the theme, is in line with present-day trends. “In a very typical manner, some of the researchers and professors have a sort of hybrid training that combines conceptual analysis and linguistics with epistemological and historical analysis, a characteristic French leaning,” adds Mariconda.

Philosophy en plein aire

Several individuals highlight the importance of the French presence at the department during the post-war years, including Gilles-Gaston Granger, Victor Goldschmidt and Claude Lefort (who taught from 1953 to 1954). Gérard Lebrun taught in the department on a number of occasions between 1960 and the mid-1990s, where he published important works on Kant and Hegel.

Michel Foucault lectured at USP in the mid-1960s and then in 1973. According to Bolzani, “Lebrun, as much as Bento Prado Jr., to a great extent inspired the ideas behind the founding of the department.”

The presence of the French influenced philosophical trends at USP, especially during the first decades of the program

Bento (as he came to be known among his neopragmatism of the Frankfurt School, colleagues and students) was a key figure others sought to push for a dialectic in a generation that—under the influence with a strong theoretical grounding in of their study of Marx in the early 1960s psychoanalysis, while still others looked and with their relatively mild critique of to the Marx-Spinoza connection. It’s true the founders’ methods—is now considered that Porchat’s skepticism attracted no the first to have established an original followers in the department.” Safatle’s approach in the department. According to own focus, among other interests, is the Paulo Eduardo Arantes (another member work of the Frankfurt School and that of of this generation, though having studied psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

The particular style that became the under the first) Bento, in his 1994 Um departamento francês de ultramar (A legacy of the French pioneers, with their department of Frenchmen from across resistance to amateurish thinking—and the sea), “was a philosopher who worked which, according to Arantes, encouraged in the open air, far away—but not too far— a “prophylactic” practice whereby the department protected itself against from the original texts.”

Other celebrated members of this “Brazil’s fever for novelty”—was the generation, like José Arthur Giannotti, training of historians and critics of Ruy Fausto, Marilena Chauí, were philosophy, and not of philosophers as also influenced by their study of such. “There is, in fact, some difficulty Marx. Marilena Chauí led a thematic in taking this step forward,” says Bolzani. project ending in 2013 that studied “But better to face this problem than the relationship between nature and the alternative, because the current the history of philosophy in the 17 th model does not discourage the idea century, its legacy and the analyses and of practicing philosophy while at the critiques of these seventeenth-century same time studying it through readings concepts by both the French and German of original texts.” Another common Enlightenment and certain contemporary criticism points to a certain resistance philosophers. Oswaldo Porchat, by the department to more current another philosopher, was known for his contemporary philosophy, although originality and the independence of his Safatle mentions efforts in the other philosophical skepticism. The military direction, “especially the philosophy government at the time was the first to developed over the past 40 years.” n censor the intellectual activities of the group when, in 1969, both Bento a n d G i a n n o t t i i we re forced to resign under the provisions of the regime’s Institutional Act 5 (AI-5). The group would face other challenges in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the fall of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. “With the retreat of Marxist thought the department’s professors began to rethink their philosophy,” says Bolzani. “ T h e d e b a t e surrounding the so-called USP brand of Marxism took on many forms,” says Professor Vladimir Safatle, who graduated in 2 1994, adding that “some l e a n e d t o w a r d s t h e Gérard Lebrun: classes at USP throughout a number of periods in its history pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 71

LITERATURE

From masters to apprentices léo ramos

Eduardo Nunomura

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The university’s contribution in fields such as literary theory and film criticism continues

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alnice Nogueira Galvão was his first assistant and still remembers the details of the years during which they worked together, such as when she learned that a well taught class should be contained in four typewritten pages. Celso Lafer affectionately remembers the care with which he always taught those who studied with him. Maria Augusta Bernardes Fonseca revered him as a brilliant conversationalist who could listen to the contributions of others with respect and attention. They are all remembering Antonio Candido, critic and essayist, and professor emeritus of the University of São Paulo (USP) School of Philosophy, Literature, and Human Sciences. He is also known as “the master,” as Galvão, Lafer, Fonseca and so many others who worked with one of the key thinkers in Brazil prefer to call him.

Fonseca passed her qualifying exam for promotion from assistant to associate professor at USP in 2006 and, the following year,

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It was undergraduate course Theory (1866-1952), “a passionate Hegelian began to coordinate research projects on the legacy of the works of Antonio and Analysis of the Novel, introduced historian,” and the rise of that of AnCandido. There have been three so far. by Candido in the 1960s, that resulted tonio Gramsci (1891-1932), “a Marxist The first on his essays, the second fo- in the Department of Literary Theory profoundly interested in the complexity cusing on interviews, and the third and and Comparative Literature at FFLCH of culture, especially literature.” “After current studying the prefaces he wrote. and its journal, Literatura e sociedade. my return to Brazil, rereading Otto Ma“As you can see, they are different facets, Celso Lafer, the president of FAPESP, ria Carpeaux and Antonio Candido aswith different objectives. Each contains took this course. “His Intellectual au- siduously, my influences also changed, thority is that of a great without losing sight of the intricacies the brilliance of his critical master who, over the of culturalism and the stylistic reading creativity and versatility,” years, has become a of texts. Perhaps a desire to display the explains the researcher. landmark of Brazilian riches of different perspectives resulted Since the first projculture,” stated Lafer from this syncretic moment, sensitive ect, she has been collect- Formação da in an article published to the multiplicity of critical views. I ing summaries based on in the 2009 Literatura sought to transmit this to students, inithe “master’s” views on literatura e Sociedade issue com- tially as a professor of Italian literaliterature. Her first conbrasileira, memorating Candido’s ture,” says Bosi, who formulated this tact with his works was 90th birthday. In it, he approach in O ser e o tempo da poesia Formação da literatura Candido’s discusses the role Law (Man and time in poetry), a book pubbrasileira (The formation School played in Anto- lished in 1977. of Brazilian literature), seminal work, USP professor emeritus Walnice nio Candido’s career.

Candido’s seminal book, Yes, in 1939 the “mas- Nogueira Galvão, a fundamental reffirst published in 1959 and was published ter” took and passed erence in studies of the works of Eustill a fundamental conin 1959 the entrance exams to clides da Cunha (1866-1909) and Guitribution to the creation study both social sci- marães Rosa (1908-1967), affirms that of awareness of Brazilianence and law. He com- Antonio Candido was the best profesness. It was while pursupleted his degree in the sor she had on “five continents,” and ing her master’s degree, former, but did not fin- with whom she became friends. She in the 1970s, focused on Oswald de Andrade’s “Serafim Ponte ish the latter, despite staying with the visits him weekly and, when she travels abroad, she visits him both before leavGrande,” that Fonseca had the oppor- course through the fifth year.

“We are children of our times and ing and when returning. With 40 books tunity to attend his lectures, “long, but tireless for the 200 students who filled our schooling,” says Alfredo Bosi, pro- published, Galvão remembers the time the classroom.” The researcher came to fessor emeritus of Brazilian literature when she was working on her thesis for see him as a “wellspring of criticism” at USP, referring to the eclectic uni- promotion from assistant to associate given the variety and plurality of the versity environment of the late 1950s. professor, in 1972, when Candido, even aspects that he discusses in his essays. “Studying literature provided us with though he was not a specialist on EuAnd this also serves as a lesson for Fon- both the historical and aesthetic seca’s students studying Brazilian mod- dimensions of literary texts, toernism. “You cannot avoid reading An- gether with respect for philotonio Candido when you are studying logical scholarship, which was Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, an asset, because we were not Manuel Bandeira, Carlos Drummond imprisoned by any prior system. de Andrade, Aníbal Machado and oth- But as the political climate of the 1960s heated up even beers,” she states. fore the military coup, feeding leftist reform projects, our conLiterature and society The current faculty in the literary the- ception of literature and culture ory and comparative literature depart- also changed from a fusion of ment at FFLCH no longer follow the existentialism and idealism to same critical lineage focusing on the a view in which consideration relationships between literature and of social determination weighed society, an approach that the “master” more strongly and occupied the still defends. But there is no lack of re- forefront of reflection on the searchers, such as Joaquim Alves de nature and function of literaAguiar, Betina Bischof and Ana Paula ture.

Bosi studied in Florence for Pacheco, who are fully dedicating them1 selves to, or in some way embracing, a brief period, in 1961-1962, the study of Antonio Candido’s works and saw the decline in the inWalnice Nogueira Galvão: Antonio Candido was her best professor “on five continents” fluence of Benedetto Croce in their research.

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Roberto Schwarz: critic of the works of Machado de Assis, he remains an influence in the Literary Theory, Brazilian Literature and Modern Literature departments

clides da Cunha, endeavored to help her find references on the author. “Antonio Candido was always concerned about teaching others, and he did this by sharing with them his love of literature.”

Photos 1 eduardo cesar 2 miguel boyayan

Dialectical criticism

Although he advised many disciples who are now lauded in intellectual circles, such as Galvão, Davi Arrigucci, João Luiz Lafetá and José Miguel Wisnik, Antonio Candido’s most direct heir is Robert Schwarz. Professor of literary theory and comparative literature at USP (until 1968) and of literary theory at Unicamp (1978-1992), he absorbed from the “master” the method of criticism that seeks to understand the complex relationships between literary form and social process. Schwarz was his student as an undergraduate in social sciences, in 1958, the same year in which he was a member of the iconic group in the seminar on Capital, by Karl Marx, which also consisted of the intellectuals Ruth and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (later president of Brazil), Octavio Ianni, Fernando Novais, Paul Singer and José Arthur Giannotti. Roberto

history as represented in Schwarz, together with cultural production,” she Leôncio Martins Rostates. drigues, Francisco WefCevasco explains that fort, Gabriel Bollaffi, Mi- “We are the work of Schwarz, chael Löwy and Bento one of the greatest critics Prado Júnior, was among children of Machado de Assis, is the most assiduous stuof our times still read in the Literary dents. In an interview Theory, Brazilian Literawith Pesquisa FAPESP and our ture and Modern Literain April 2004, Schwarz ture departments at USP. stated that the seminar schooling,” Cevasco has published on Marx was decisive in articles in French and his education because it says Alfredo book chapters, “required critical reflecBosi, professor English, and organized a book of tion about contemporeflections on Um mesrary society” and, at the emeritus tre na periferia do capisame time, distanced ittalismo (A master on the self from the “clumsy unperiphery of capitalism), derstanding” that communist parties had of Marx at the time. published in 1990, one of Schwarz’s Maria Elisa Cevasco, full professor in most emblematic essays. “His way of the USP Modern Languages Depart- reading demonstrates that the literary ment, reminds us of the importance of form is an abstraction of existing social Schwarz’s dialectical criticism to young relationships,” explains Cevasco. “This students as early as the 1970s, and it type of analysis allows us to see that remains an important part of thinking artistic form is a synthesis that allows for USP students. “His works continue us to intuitively understand social into teach us to construct criticism that teractions, thus providing us with the helps us decipher the real changes in elements needed to judge them.” n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 75

Critic Paulo Emílio with his cats, in 1972 76 76 especial SPECIAL _ especialUSP 80 80anos anos AT 80usp usp

SERGIO ARAKI / AGêNCIA ESTADO / AE

Communication and Arts

An historical reference point Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes is still a prominent figure in the university’s history

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Eduardo Nunomura and Fabrício Marques

riter, critic, and professor of cinema studies at the University of São Paulo (USP), Paulo Emilio Salles Gomes (1916-1977) has played a key role in the acculturation and education of new generations of university students ever since the late 1950s. “I admired his acute awareness of the context in which he was speaking, which expressed a determination to reflect on culture as it relates to the realities of society,” says Ismail Xavier, a professor at the USP School of Communications and Arts (ECA). “He provoked and encouraged me to overcome my shyness and inhibition—and this at a time when I didn’t even know how to write in Portuguese,” recalls Jean-Claude Bernardet, a critic, cinematographer, and retired ECA professor.

Professor Antonio Candido said Salles Gomes was responsible for getting him involved in political militancy, according to a 2001 interview with Candido that appeared in Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais (Brazilian Social Science Review).

Aligned with the communists during the 1930s, Salles Gomes distanced himself from them because of Stalinism but remained a leftist militant. In 1941, at age 23, he made his debut as literary critic for the magazine Clima (Climate), an academic landmark in São Paulo criticism that brought together leading names from Brazil’s intellectual community. “They formed a splendid constellation that would make a lasting mark on the cultural

panorama of this country,” recalls Walnice Nogueira Galvão, in one of the tributes paid during the celebration of what would have been Candido’s 90th birthday in 2008. In addition to Salles Gomes and Candido, other members of that group of friends from what was then the USP School of Philosophy, Literature and Science included Décio de Almeida Prado (who later turned to theatre), Lourival Gomes Machado (fine arts), Ruy Coelho (anthropology), and Gilda de Moraes Rocha (esthetics), Candido’s wife.

The generation from Clima had a very strong connection with Brazilian modernism in terms of their observations and essays, and their view of history and criticism in general. Furthermore, they were educators in the strictest sense of the word, always devoted to training Brazil’s new generations of thinkers. “No one in cinematographic criticism ever had the breadth of culture that Salles Gomes had,” Galvão recalls. Bernardet credits Salles Gomes for changing the course of his life when, in 1958, he took a course in criticism during which he heard Salles Gomes say that “cinema doesn’t exist; what exists are films.” Until then a dogmatic way of thinking had prevailed about the seventh art because of its position in a narrative that was predominately North American.

“Salles Gomes encouraged freedom in our approach to films and that changed the way I thought,” says Bernardet. He became closer to the “master” while working at pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 77

the Cinemateca Brasileira, which Salles Journalism and Telenovelas Gomes directed and which led to his be- The School of Communications and coming a movie critic for newspapers like Arts at USP was established in 1966 as A Gazeta and O Estado de S.Paulo. the School of Cultural Communications.

Salles Gomes was already one of the “The new field of knowledge should have most respected critics and columnists been given to the School of Philosophy, of O Estado’s renowned Literary Supple- but there was a group who didn’t want ment. He invited Bernardet to form the that,” recalled Professor José Marques de first team of faculty members in the cin- Mello in a 2012 interview with Pesquisa ema arts course at the University of Bra- FAPESP. Marques de Mello was one of the sília, in 1965. Two years later, he started first directors of the school, responsible work at ECA, an activity interrupted by for setting up the Department of JourInstitutional Act No. 5. Then, as a means nalism and Publishing. In the 1960s he of getting around the decree issued by the had worked in Recife with Luiz Beltrão, military government in December 1968, a pioneer in communications research, the “master” started holding seminars in and later brought that experience with his home for graduate students and re- him to São Paulo—one of the assignments searchers. Ismail Xavier was a member he received was to set up a laboratorythat group and recalls that a generation newspaper at ECA. He also helped install of movie critics was born there. a Center for Research in Journalism to Salles Gomes is still the subject of stud- analyze production by the press. ies and publications, as in the book to be In 1992, as Marques de Mello observed, published in France in 2015, produced a gap in ECA research was filled by the in collaboration with Ismail Xavier. The establishment of the Center for Telenovework is a compilation of articles by Salles la Studies, headed by Professor Ana MaGomes that appeared in ria Fadul. “When I was the supplement of the director of the School, I Estadão, as well as prerealized that our coursviously unpublished texts es in radio and television

by Brazilian and foreign A gap in ECA were teaching everything researchers. Another probut the telenovela (soap fessor who has a great af- research was opera), which was the finity for the “master” is principal product exportfilled by Carlos Augusto Calil, also ed by our cultural indusfrom ECA, who worked establishment try,” he says. Today, ECA with Salles Gomes at the is a leader in that field Cinemateca. Calil or- of the Center of research. In 1995, a ganized the complete group of 10 researchers works by the critic, ini- for Telenovela began the thematic projtially published by Cosac ect Ficção e realidade: A Studies Naify before the rights telenovela no Brasil, o Brawere later acquired by sil na telenovela (Fiction Companhia das Letras. and reality: the TelenoveBoth Bernardet and Xavila in Brazil, Brazil in the er regret that in the field Telenovela). It was comof cinematography, Salles Gomes has be- posed of nine different studies. Maria come a merely historical reference for Immacolata Vassallo Lopes, a full proyounger generations. This is because his fessor at ECA, coordinated one of the strong nationalistic bent no longer makes studies, the purpose of which was to inas big an impact. “His thinking was con- vestigate the way that the telenovela was nected to a specific time in history, and received in a universe of four families underdevelopment is not so much an is- who lived under different social condisue in this era of globalization,” Bernardet tions. Years later, Vassallo de Lopes besays. “And today there is a huge difference, came coordinator of the international because university professors have fewer research network known as the Iberoopportunities to project themselves into American Television Fiction Observatory the public sphere of the media,” Xavier (OBITEL),established with participation says. Critical thought, so dear to the heart by nine countries, involving university of Salles Gomes, has become rarified. scholars and international television re78 SPECIAL USP AT 80

searchers, such as the Globo Network and the Mexican broadcaster Televisa.

The new directions taken by the telenovela in Brazil were also analyzed in a thematic project entitled Formação do campo intelectual e da indústria cultural no Brasil contemporâneo (Formation of the intellectual field and the culture industry in contemporary Brazil), coordinated

by Sergio Miceli, a professor at the USP School of Philosophy, Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH). It resulted in the book, O Brasil antenado (Tuned-in Brazil),

by ECA professor Esther Hamburger. One of her conclusions is that the telenovela no longer occupies the position it held in the 1970s and 1980s. Hamburger is also in charge of a project undertaken as part of the FAPESP Infrastructure Program to digitize, preserve, and organize the archives of the dramatic television fiction produced by the former TV Tupi. The digitizing of the 100 hours of material has already resulted in academic studies—one of them discussing the importance of Beto Rockefeller, by Bráulio Pedroso, the production that revived the genre in 1968.

A research topic in which ECA recently became interested is the so-called net-activism, a term that applies to new models of participation that use digital media. Italian sociologist Massimo Di Felice, coordinator of the school’s Atopos Research Center, in a study supported

by FAPESP identified three distinct moments in the emergence of digital activism. The first, in the 1990s, was related to international thematic movements— in Australia and India, for example—in which the actions took place in arts and politics. The second moment found expression in the zapatista movement in Mexico and inspired the World Social Forum. That sparked international protests in cities like Seattle (in 1999) and Davos (in 2001). The third moment began in 2000 and is still in progress. In it, the researcher highlights a new activism that, in many cases, has brought about radical processes of transformation—the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street, in the United States (2011), and the street protests of June 2013 in Brazil. Di Felice says the key to the evolution of the movement is found in the change from web 1.0 to web 2.0. Previously, the Internet had been a network of computers connected by modems and telephone lines that permitted only exchanges of texts

and images. Now it has become a much more mobile and agile platform.

léo ramos

Music and Fine Arts

A recent highlight in music is the thematic project entitled Móbile, completed in 2014 and coordinated by Professor Fernando Iazzetta. The idea was to bring together researchers from music, visual arts, scenic arts, computer science, and engineering to develop new musical processes centered on the interaction among the various apparently unrelated sectors. The project especially sought to question the technology fetish, following the initial models of experimentalism focused on high-tech studies and equipment. “Very often, too much technology can trip you up (…). The more complicated articulation has to take place in artistic thought, not in engineering,” said Iazzetta in an interview with Pesquisa FAPESP. The researchers in Móbile exhibited the results of the project during an international tour. The show featured six scenes in which “traditional” works were mixed with instruments and scores; other scenes used improvisation; and three were based on searches through the interaction among music, technology, and other arts.

In the field of fine arts, one of the ECA highlights is the work by Professor Regina Silveira, who has since retired. An intermedia artist, Silveira’s work circulates among various artistic media, from photography to painting, passing through postal art and intervention focused on urban architecture. In the 1960s, she studied painting with Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre. In the 1980s, as part of her PhD project in arts at USP, she produced a series of engravings and drawings entitled Anamorfas, about distortions in perspective. “It may seem paradoxical, but being both a figure from academia and a transgressive artist were never, in my experience, incompatible terms (or attitudes),” Silveira said in 2010.

“On the contrary, academia gave me a good ‘niche’ in which to exercise my freedom to experiment and violate rules. First, I was able to produce a lot of works and projects that were really new and experimental, thanks to support from research grants, such as from FAPESP and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). I would not have had the chance to take the risks I took if those works had been destined for the art market which, at least at the time, was nascent and conservative,” she said.. n

ARCHITECTURE

Social progressive Vilanova Artigas and Mendes da Rocha promoted the idea that cities should be more human and accessible

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oão Batista Vilanova Artigas and Paulo Mendes da Rocha were professors at the School of Architecture and Urban Studies (FAU-USP) and advocates of a progressive architecture that was socially responsible and who left in their wake an agenda for Brazil. Artigas is considered to have been a central figure in the so-called “São Paulo architecture,” that flourished during the turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s.

He was responsible for the symbolic building occupied by the FAU, which was designed to be an edifice that cannot be closed up and that encourages people to engage in fellowship with each other. “You become infected by the shape, and so no one who studies there can produce mediocre, insignificant architecture,” says Professor Alvaro Puntoni, who worked at the Vilanova Artigas Foundation.

Puntoni’s “master” was the proponent of a unique, humanistic way of teaching the subject, based on the principal of “calling upon the necessary bodies of knowledge (philosophical and technological) and with a very clear idea of generosity and the duty

to share that knowledge with new generations.” For his part, Mendes da Rocha, one of the most recognized disciples of Artigas’s work, was the second Brazilian to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the world’s most important award in architecture, in 2006—the first was Oscar Niemeyer. The award served as recognition of the importance of São Paulo architecture, which placed greater emphasis on intelligent construction and less on exuberant forms. Professor Milton Braga, also from the FAU, had already worked with Mendes da Rocha on projects ranging from the Avenida Rebouças corridor in 1995, to the 18-story SESC 24 de Maio building under construction in the historical center of São Paulo. “He was always concerned about technical construction in Brazil. If in the 20th century there was regional disorganization, the 21st century agenda that calls for a focus on the major cities persists,” he explains. In other words, the teachings of “masters” like Artigas and Mendes da Rocha left to subsequent generations the lesson that it’s not enough to build houses; we have to equip cities with sufficient transportation, accessible sidewalks, and an attractive urban environment so that they can be more humans. n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 79

History

The art of power Marcos Pivetta

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Italian map of colonial Brazil from 1556, drawn by Giacomo Gastaldi and Giovani Battista Ramusio

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n the last two or three decades, one of the most striking trends in academic work coming out of the history department at the School of Philosophy, Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH) at the University of São Paulo (USP) has been the blending of perspectives taken from culture and the arts with Brazil’s political trajectory. Studies that highlight the role of the media, music, film, theater and other means of artistic expression during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) were taking shape in an area of study that, like FFLCH, took its first steps at USP under the strong influence of French academicians who arrived very early in the university’s history.

“Until the 1960s, economic history had a huge influence on the department. Next, social perspectives on history predominated, serving as a big umbrella for various topics and methodologies. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, a

Approaches that meld culture and politics are characteristic of the Department today 2

Photos 1 Reproduction 2 Archives / ESTADãO content / AE

The play Roda viva: historical studies about art during the dictatorship

decisive shift occurred, and history was project entitled “Dimensões do Império viewed through a cultural and political Português” [Dimensions of the Portuguelens,” says Maria Helena Capelato, a pro- se Empire] from 2005 to 2010. One of the fessor in the department who specializes project’s findings was that the Portuguein research on the impact of the media se colonial administration could not be in Brazil and Latin America during the reduced simply to a gigantic, rigid and last wave of authoritarian governments inefficient bureaucratic machine run by an authoritarian centralized government in the Americas.

One of this latest trend’s most im- overseeing its submissive colonies. In fact, Lisbon, which led portant contributors is the most enduring moMarcos Napolitano, aldern European empire, so a professor in the hisadroitly used its power, tory department, whose “overcoming the limits research has focused on Colonial imposed by the oceanic trends in Brazilian popuseparation between the lar music and, to a lesser Brazil and metropole and its coloextent, on audiovisual its relations nies,” she related to Peswork, during the militaquisa FAPESP in a report ry regime. According to with the published in November Napolitano, “this cultural 2012. On the topic of approach gained ground metropole the colonial system, the after the end of the dictawork of Fernando Notorship.” FFLCH lost one also inspires vais, today a professor of the exponents of apimportant emeritus at USP and proaching history throuprofessor at the Colleges gh a cultural lens with the research of Campinas (Facamp), death of historian Nicois also required reading. lau Sevcenko, who died in Although certain fielAugust 2014. Sevcenko’s ds of research have hiswork was distinguished by his use of literature as a source of his- torically been dominant at USP, the history department today is producing retorical research.

Another direction the department is search on a variety of topics and time taking in its research is to study the his- periods. Studies are being conducted on tory of colonial Brazil, its relationship ancient history, the medieval period, the with Portugal as the metropole and the modern age, and contemporary themes. transatlantic issue. Historian Laura de “History’s focus today is finely differenMello e Souza, who recently retired from tiated and multifaceted,” says Napolitano.

USP and now teaches at the Sorbonne in The focus of one department project is a Paris, coordinated FAPESP’s thematic good example of the current openness to

the most varied subjects: under the coordination of Professor Gildo Magalhães dos Santos Filho, researchers are studying the implementation of an electric power system in the state of São Paulo between 1890 and 1960, which will also generate a database accessible by the public.

From the very beginning, USP has been a pioneer in the topics and approaches it introduced to historical research. Fernand Braudel, a professor at USP from 1935 to 1937 and one of the exponents of the so-called second generation of the École des Annales [Annales School], disseminated the notion of “longue durée” – that is, historical time that passes more slowly than circumstantial events – and that of a history of human mindsets and ideas. His influence reigned for decades at FFLCH. Subsequently, other heavyweights played an important role in shaping subsequent generations of historians trained by the department.

Having written Formação do Brasil contemporâneo – Colônia [The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil] in 1942, the pivotal work of his intellectual output, Caio Prado Jr. promoted historiography from a Marxist perspective. Author of the classic book Raízes do Brasil [Roots of Brazil], published in 1936, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda became a professor of the history of Brazilian civilization at USP in 1958 with his thesis Visão do paraíso – Os motivos edênicos no descobrimento e na colonização do Brasil [A Vision of Paradise: The Search for Eden in the Discovery and Colonization of Brazil]. “His work still garners high levels of respect today,” says Capelato. n pESQUISA FAPESP December 2014 81

Archeology

From Lagoa Santa to Zarqa Brazilians search for ancient hominids in Jordan

rom October through November 2014, archeologist and anthropologist Walter Neves, coordinator of the Human Sciences Laboratory of the Biosciences Institute at the University of São Paulo (IB-USP), focused his fieldwork on a new project: working alongside Brazilian, Italian and Middle Eastern colleagues to conduct excavations in the valley area of the Zarqa River, a tributary of the famous Jordan River that crosses the central hill country of Jordan. Home to nearly 50 prehistoric caves, some bearing evidence of very ancient human lithic industry, the area was inhabited by the first hominids that migrated from Africa to Asia and possibly Europe nearly 1.8 million years ago.

“Conducting research in the Middle East has always been my dream,” Neves says.

Never known as anything but bold, through two decades of studies carried out at Lagoa Santa on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, the USP researcher pro82 SPECIAL USP AT 80

posed a new theory about the colonization process in the Americas. Based on an analysis of the anatomical features of more than 80 human skeletons found in this region of Minas, rich in archeological sites, particularly studies on the skull of Luzia (11,000 years old), Neves supports the belief that South America was colonized by two different groups of Homo sapiens who came from Asia.

The first migratory wave would have occurred approximately 14,000 years ago and included individuals resembling Luzia, with non-mongoloid features similar to modern-day Africans and Australian Aborigines. That group is believed not to have left descendants. The second wave would have made its way to the continent approximately 12,000 years ago, and its members would have had the physical traits typical of Asians, of whom the descendants are present-day Amerindians.

The theory was and continues to be con-

troversial, but now nearly all international research findings that focus on the process by which the Americas were populated must at least mention it, if for no other reason than to refute Neves’ ideas.

SAMBAQUIS

Besides the controversy surrounding the descendants of Luzia, the USP archeologist has made other significant contributions to this field of study. Research groups from the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology (MAE) and the team led by Sabine Eggers, of the IB-USP, have conducted research along the Brazilian coast on a type of archeological site known as sambaquis, a term that refers to the mounds of shells that served as prehistoric burial sites. One of the most interesting discoveries was Luzio, the name given to the 10,000 year-old skeleton discovered in 2000 in a river shell mound of the Ribeira Valley in the state of São Paulo. n

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Fieldwork in the Zarqa River Valley: migration route for hominids leaving Africa

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