About

The Graduate Program in Biotechnology (PPGBiotec) at the Federal University of São Carlos began its activities in 2004 offering Master and Doctoral courses.

As the first multidisciplinary program at UFSCar, it aims to train researchers to induce and participate in the development of Biotechnology in the country, in parallel with the implementation and consolidation of Interdisciplinary Scientific and Technological Research in Biotechnology.

The Program proposes to promote a qualitative leap in activities related to Biotechnology already under development in several departments of UFSCar and to get in touch with other Departments, Universities, and Research Centers, which over time will have to join the Program, adding experience and competence, to expand the disciplines and areas for the development of new interdisciplinary activities.

Objectives of PPGBiotec

The Postgraduate Program in Biotechnology, the first of an interdisciplinary nature at UFSCar, aims to train HR to induce and participate in the development of Biotechnology in the country, in parallel with the implementation and consolidation of Interdisciplinary Scientific and Technological Research in Biotechnology. The Program proposes to promote a qualitative and quantitative leap in activities related to Biotechnology under development in several Departments of UFSCar. Initially, all the Professors of the Program belonged to UFSCar, forming the nucleus of the implantation of the Program. Later, with the first graduated students, professors, and researchers from other Departments, Universities, and Research Centers joined the Program, adding experience and competence, to expand the disciplines and areas for the development of new interdisciplinary activities. The program was created in March 2004 as an innovative initiative within UFSCar, due to its interdisciplinary nature, with professors belonging to different departments, but without being directly linked to the traditional structure of the departments. It is a relatively young program, compared to others at UFSCar. The first dissertations were defended in 2007, and the doctoral dissertations in 2008. Since then, more than 160 theses and dissertations have been defended, showing, together with the projects and publications, the rapid and consistent evolution of the program.

In general, in addition to the training of the researcher and/or innovator and/or entrepreneur, the concern is with the urgent problems and challenges that concern science and society with an inter and multidisciplinary vision, both about the basic aspects of biotechnology as well as those of immediate application. This can be observed in the works developed, such as new methods for the development of recombinant vaccines, protein expression, development of systems for magnetic resonance imaging in medical treatments, therapeutic laser effects, and other photodynamic therapies with the evaluation of in vitro and in vivo, protocols for bioterrorism and hospital biosecurity, development of software that support basic science or monitoring of biological processes, the establishment of methodologies for DNA analysis, in vitro, in vivo and molecular simulation studies of compounds related to anti- and diseases such as malaria, studies for the development and support of agriculture, and in particular sugarcane, development of a pipeline for genomic and transcriptomic analysis based on Web services, studies of biocompatibility, magnetism, nanoparticles, controlled-release drugs, among many others. It is observed that this variety of topics is made possible by the training of professors and their laboratories in the application of 21st-century issues, which are interdisciplinary.

Program history and context

UFSCar is a proven institution of excellence in R&D and HR training, recognized as such by CNPq, CAPES, FAPESP, FINEP, and other funding bodies linked to scientific and technological research and high-level HR training. And as pointed out above, UFSCar adds sufficient competence and experience to contribute and induce the development of Biotechnology in the country.

Biotechnology is understood as technology involving living organisms, molecules from living organisms (biomolecules), and/or compounds that interact with biomolecules, aiming at obtaining products, processes, or services of interest to society, through techniques developed from knowledge related to different areas of knowledge related to it, such as molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, nanotechnology, medicine and other related areas, such as the purposeful manipulation of DNA molecules, genetic sequencing, controlled drug dispersion, diagnostics, and biosensors, to name a few examples.

Traditional Biotechnology is not being forgotten, but the main focus here is centered on the application of the set of techniques developed in the last 30 years. Due to its intrinsically multidisciplinary characteristics, Biotechnology demands the aggregation of researchers from the different areas that comprise it, in this way, and because we have a great availability of such researchers in the various UFSCar campuses and the universities and research centers around São Carlos, interested in Biotechnology is that the multidisciplinary Postgraduate Program in Biotechnology at UFSCar was proposed in 2004.

Initially involving researchers from different departments of UFSCar and EMBRAPA Instrumentação - CNPDIA/São Carlos, which maintains close cooperation with it, and later from USP, UNESP, UNIFESP, and others, the graduate program in Biotechnology at UFSCar brings together a number of the significant number of researchers with significant production in this area. This number has grown due to the demand for researchers in the program, which has led to the definition of very strict criteria in the accreditation/discreditation of these researchers.

In the 2013-2016 quadrennium, we continued on the same path of growth of the program, but with finer adjustments in the faculty and stronger demands on deadlines and publications. Our number of patents has been growing steadily with an average of three or four applications per year, 2013 is no exception. With the new regiment, these aspects will manifest themselves more strongly in the following years.

Previous coordination of PPG-Biotec

Year: 2005
Coordinator: Claudio Alberto Torres Suazo
Vice-Coordinator: Mauro Biajiz

Year: 2006 to 2010
Coordinator: Fernando M. Araújo Moreira
Vice-Coordinator: Luis Carlos Trevelin

Year: 2011 to 2015
Coordinator: Luis Carlos Trevelin
Deputy Coordinator: Julio Zukerman Schpector

Year: 2016 to 2018
Coordinator: Cristina Paiva de Sousa
Vice-Coordinator: ngela Merice de Oliveira Leal
Vice-Coordinator (since Jan/17): Julio Zukerman Schpector

Teaching representatives
There will be elections in March

Student representative
Matheus Darone Fronteira
email: daronematheus@gmail.com