From 2013.igem.org

Get to know UFMG

UFMG campus

The Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)is a federal brazilian institution of higher education based in the city of Belo Horizonte, in the State of Minas Gerais. It was founded as "Universidade de Minas Gerais (UMG)" in 1927.The present name was adopted only in 1965.

UFMG is among the most prestigious universities from Brazil and is the biggest from the state of Minas Gerais. In 2013, QS World University Rankings classified UFMG as the second best federal brazilian university, occupying the tenth position amongst Latin America Institutions.

With a total area of 8.775.579 m² and constructed area of 620.735 m², UFMG has 3 campi with 20 academic units, 2 special units, 26 libraries and 12 cultural spaces (Museums and Science spaces). At the present, UFMG offers 80 undergraduate courses and 70 grad courses,in all areas of knowledge.

For more information, access: https://www.ufmg.br/conheca/hi_index.shtml

The Team

UFMG_Brazil Team

Undergraduates

Alan Sales Barbosa

Bachelor in Science and education student in Biology at UFMG, he has experience with microbiology, immunology, cell biology and vascular physiology. Former vice president of the Junior Company of Biology - UFMG, is currently an undergraduate researcher in Angiogenesis Laboratory, Department of Physiology and Biophysics from Institute of Biological Sciences (ICB - UFMG). Alan likes natural sciences in general, from the basic research to the applied, including cell therapy, synthetic and system biology as well as science popularization projects. So, on iGEM_UFMG team, he has been engaged mainly with human practices and the eternal seeking for funding and sponsoring, being not able to put hands dirty on the experimental trek as much as he wished.

Carlos Alberto Xavier Gonçalves

Carlos is an undergraduate Biology student at UFMG, and also has some expertise with Computer Graphics. Because of that, he's been working both in the lab and behind the screen of his computer, aiding the team not only with his scientific knowledge and experience, but with his art skills as well. He plans on getting his degree this year, and already aims to follow up with a masters in Bioinformatics.

Júlio Leandro Martins

Júlio is a Computer Science student since 2011 at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG/Brazil) and scholarship holder at Immunochemistry Lab. He has a passion by biochemistry and immunology, specially to study, develop and apply computing methods to cope with problems in these areas. Keep your food away from him or you will never see it again! =P

Lucas Ribeiro

Hello, my name is Lucas, I'm a medical student at UFMG. I'm interested in human health in general and the new possibilities offered by synthetic biology.

Paola Giovana

Is graduated in Media at Centro Universitário UNA. Currently, Paola is an undergrad student in Product Design at UFMG. She is the one who made our beautiful logo and our brochure!

Raphael Jorge

Raphael is an undergraduate Biomedicine student at UFMG. Worked as undergraduate researcher in the lab of immunochemistry of protein being directed by Professor Liza Felicori. Turned to the field of synthetic biology, it was love at first sight. His desire is to follow this research field and, perhaps, become a teacher one day.

Graduates

Fernando Carvalho da Silva Coelho

Fernando is a Bachelor in Computer Science and Master's degree Computer Science student at UFMG. An old fashioned programmer who uses a black and green terminal with Vim as his favorite text editor. He is passionate for Open Source software and the modern Web. His main skill is in Pythonic magic, for solving problems as quickly as possible.

Ítalo Faria do Valle

Ítalo is a Bachelor in Biological Sciences and is a masters degree student in Bioinformatics at UFMG. He is a big lover of molecular biology and a enthusiastic in using computational tools to understand biological phenomena. His main studies are about genomics and evolution of Trypanosoma cruzi, but the IGEM has awakened in him a big interest in synthetic biology and he is already thinking in follow his scientific career with this topic!

Marianna Kunrath Lima

Marianna is a master’s ­degree student in Biochemistry and Immunology at UFMG and her thesis is about DNA repair in Trypanosoma cruzi. She has great experience with molecular biology, which made her being a lab hero, sometimes literally chasing reagents and equipments to be used in CardBio’s experiments. Sometimes she is too down to earth, but the team remembers her that dreaming a little bit is good!

Clara Guerra Duarte

Clara is a postdoctoral fellow in the Immunochemistry laboratory at UFMG. She received her PhD in Biochemistry and Immunology from the UFMG in August of 2011. She has been the major adviser for UFMG's iGEM team this season. She's been primaraly involved in the project concept development and keeping the team motivated! :)

Instructors

Liza Felicori

Dr. Liza Felicori is full professor in the Biochemistry and Immunology Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Her work is focused on protein-protein interactions application to diagnosis and therapeutics. Since 2008, she is working on the field of systems biology and synthetic biology. She is very enthusiastic with synthetic biology and very motivated to bring to light this field in the University through iGEM.

Santuza Teixeira

Is graduated in Biology by Universidade de Brasília (1982), has masters in Molecular Biology by Universidade de Brasília (1985) and PhD in Biochemistry by Universite de Lausanne, on Switzerland (1990). She did a post-doc internship at the University of Iowa (1991-1996). She is currently a titular professor at Department of Biochemistry and Immunology of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and a member of INCTV. She was a researcher at Howard Hughes Medical Institute (International Research Scholar). Has experience in research on Molecular Biology, working mainly with the subjects: Molecular Parasitology and Parasites Genomics, with emphasis on studies about genetic expression regulation, antigen discoveries, genetic variability and DNA repair on ''Trypanosoma cruzi''.

Omar Paranaíba

Is graduated in Computer Engineering by PUC-RJ (2003), has masters in Electrical Engineering, with emphasis in Methods Decision Support, by PUC-RJ (2006)and PhD in Electrical Engineering, with emphasis in Nanotechnology, by PUC-RJ(2009). Currently, Omar is a professor at Computer Science Department at UFMG, acting in Computer Nanotechnology. Has experience in A.I., Evolutionary Algorithms, Computer Architecture, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and Computer Systems.

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank several people from various laboratories at UFMG and abroad, as well as friends and family, who helped us during the development of our project with equipments, reagents, ideas and different other kinds of support:

• Laboratório de Genética Bioquímica (LGB), ICB-UFMG, for allowing us to use their infrastructure, materials and for technical support;

• Laboratório de Sinalização Celular e Nanobiotecnologia, ICB-UFMG, specially the student Anderson K. Santos, for helping us with the fluorimetry experiments;

• Laboratório de Genômica e Genética de Parasitos, ICB-UFMG, for providing supplies and technical support;

• Laboratório de Imunoquímica de Toxinas Naturais, ICB-UFMG, for allowing us to use their infrastructure and several materials;

• Laboratório de Sistema de Informação, ICEX-UFMG, for allowing us to use their cameras and softwares for the production of our videos;

• Laboratório de Angiogênese, ICB-UFMG, for donating sera from mice for our IMA experiments, and specially the PhD student Brígida Gomes de Almeida Schirmer, who allowed us to follow the procedures of ischemia induction and blood sampling;

• Neuza Antunes Rodrigues, from LGB, who taught biosafety procedures and legislation to our team members;

• Professor Gastone Castellani, Professor Daniel Remondini and PhD Dr.ssa Giulia Menichetti from Università di Bologna, for helping us with the modeling analyses;

• Juliana Pimenta, from Síntese Biotecnologia, who believed in our project and provided several oligonucleotides free of charge;

• Andréa Mara Macedo, coordinator professor of UFMG & Escolas Project, who gave us the opportunity to apply our Brickard game to the project students.

• To FAPEMIG, Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa da UFMG, Programas de Pós-graduação em Bioquímica e Imunologia e Bioinformática, Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia em Medicina Molecular, Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia em Nanobiofarmacêutica, Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia em Vacinas (INCTV), for financial support;

• To all our friends and family, who contributed to our “Vakinha” (a Brazilian way to raise funds with family and friends).

Collaborations

Jamboré

Our team participated in the first event that promoted the meeting of the Brazilian teams, which was hosted by the USP team(University of São Paulo). This historic event (and very funny one) was called Jamboré. All the teams members were able to play the card game created as a human practices by the USP team, know themselves and the projects better, join a discussion about the difficulties of the competition and the solutions that each team has found (with the sponsorship, for example) and collaborate with suggestions.

Purdue´s standard protocol

We collaborated with the survey done by the Purdue´s team about the development of a standard protocol. They are developing a list of protocols and assays that need to be completed in order to submit the part to the registry. For us it seems like a great idea and we hope that our collaboration has helped this project.

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