UFPel’s Professors Approve International Cooperation Project with Chile

UFPel’s professors from the Graduate Programs in Biochemistry/Bioprospecting and Biotechnology have recently approved a project that is linked to the General Program of International Cooperation (PGCI). The project is entitled “Characterization and Evaluation of the Antitumoral Potential of Lipids of Macroalgae from the phyla Chlorophyta, Rhodophyta and Phaeophyta found in the Chilean sub-Antarctic region.”
The project developed between the University of Magallanes and UFPel counts with the participation of the Brazilian professors Claudio Martin Pereira de Pereira, Tiago Collares, Márcia Foster Mesko, Fabiana Seixas and also with the students Rosiane Mastelari, Caroline Carapina, Bruna Silveira Pacheco and Marco Z. dos Santos. According to professor Pereira, the project, submitted in 2014 and approved this year, provides students and professors with the opportunity of an academic exchange, thus contributing to internationalize graduate programs in related areas in an interdisciplinary way (with interaction between Bioprospecting and Biotechnology).

The project is expected to take place until the end of 2018. In a global context, the proximity of the Chilean University to Antarctica makes Chile one of the countries where algae research and the potential of their derived substances stand out for their relevance.

Pereira highlights that the Brazilian group has shown strong technical-scientific interaction with the Chilean professors Maria Soledad Astorga and Andres Mansilla, from the University of Magallanes (Punta Arenas – Chile), as one can see in the recent publication “Fatty acid profile of the chlorophyta species from Chiles sub-Antarctic region”, published this year in the journal Academia Journal of Scientific Research. In addition, in early December 2016 the PhD student Marco dos Santos left to Punta Arenas on a five-month mission to prospect Sub-Antarctic algae and their potential for the research on bioactive substances.