Research field

Cyanobacteria are a taxonomically diverse phylum of microorganisms known to produce secondary metabolites with biotechnological potential. The chemistry of cyanobacteria from the Brazilian biodiversity remains largely underexplored, representing a promising source of unprecedented scaffolds. We are continously creating and screening a pre-fractionated library of cyanobacterial natural products for anticancer, antibiotic, and antiparasitic activities.

Omics technologies combined with information solutions have opened new frontiers in natural products research. We apply metabolomics and genomics to assist sample prioritization, dereplication, compound annotation, comparative analyses, elicitor screening, etc.

As dereplication indicates a novel, promissing molecule, is undergoes isolation and structure characterization. Compoud isolation/purification is performed by chromatographic techniques. De novo structure elucidation uses a combination of spectroscopic and spectrometric methods, including MS, UV, IR, 1D & 2D NMR, CD, as well as other techniques that might be required. Pure compounds have their biological/pharmacological properties evaluated.

Microbes produce natural products for protection, communication, environmental adaptation. But what exactly does each compound do for the producing organism? We still have a lot to discover in this topic!