The call for symposia proposals for the XV SBPMat Meeting is open until February 11th. The event will be held from September 25 to 29, 2016 in the city of Campinas (SP), in the convention center Expo D. Pedro.
Any researcher with doctoral degree, working in educational/research institution or company in Brazil or abroad, may submit a symposium proposal on any issues in the field of Materials Science and Technology.
Proposals must be filled online and must contain the title and scope of the symposium, the list of subjects covered, the contact data of the organizers and the preliminary list of invited speakers.
After submission, proposals will be evaluated by the commission of events at SBPMat and by the organizers of the meeting, and then they will be submitted to the SBPMat board.
The thematic symposia are the main axis in the program of SBPMat annual events. At the meeting held in Rio de Janeiro in 2015, more than 2,300 papers were presented in 26 symposia, covering a wide range of topics, such as carbon nanostructures, biomaterials, materials for sustainable development, materials for electronics and photonics, characterization techniques, computer simulation, safe use of nanomaterials, among others.
Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat) newsletter
News update from Brazil for the Materials community
English edition. Year 2, issue 12.
SBPMat news
Holiday message from SBPMat. See the message to the associates from the Board and Council that headed our society in 2015. Here.
Elections at SBPMat. Get to know the results of the election of the Executive Office and members of the Council, which voting was performed between December 1st and 12th. Here.
XV SBPMat Meeting. Save the date. The next annual meeting of our society will take place in the city of Campinas (SP), form September 25th to 29th of 2016. Know more.
Internationalization. Representing SBPMat, Professor Roberto Faria was elected vice-president of IUMRS (International Union of Materials Research Societies) and shall strengthen the entity action in South America. Know more.
Featured paper
A multidisciplinary team of 13 Brazilian scientists tested the efficiency of several functionalized nanomaterials for delivering genes of interest (gene delivery) to humans and rat cells, protecting the nucleic acid until destiny. The results were published on Nanoscale. See our story about the study.
Having a series of experimental evidences, a team of Brazilian scientists presented, in Applied Physics Letters, the newest member of the photovoltaic materials family: bismuth telluride. The finding opens possibilities for fundamental studies and for applications of the material. See our story.
People in the Materials community
The doctoral thesis that won the Capes Award for Doctoral Theses in the field of materials science and engineering was also winner of a Grand Capes Award. Know more.
Scientists of the Brazilian materials community, Oswaldo Alves and Marcos Pimenta, were empowered as members of TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences).
Events
6th Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) Summer School. Campinas, SP (Brazil). January, 11 to 29, 2016. Site.
5th International Conference on Surface Metrology.Póznan (Poland). April, 4 to 7, 2016. Site.
43rd International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF). San Diego (USA). April, 25 to 29, 2016. Site.
40th WOCSDICE ‐ Workshop on Compound Semiconductor Devices and Integrated Circuits held in Europe & 13th EXMATEC ‐ Expert Evaluation and Control of Compound Semiconductor Materials and Technologies. Aveiro (Portugal). June, 6 to 10, 2016. Site.
Photonic Colloidal Nanostructures: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications (PCNSPA Conference 2016). Saint Petersburg (Russia). June, 27 to July, 1, 2016. Site.
XXV International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy (ICORS2016).Fortaleza, CE (Brazil). August, 14 to 19, 2016. Site.
XV Encontro da SBPMat. Campinas, SP (Brazil). September, 25 to 29, 2016. Site.
Aerospace Technology 2016. Stockholm (Sweden). October, 11 to 12, 2016. Site.
Dear associates of the Brazilian Materials Research Society (SBPMat),
The Executive Office and the members of the Council of SBPMat thank all of its associates and those who have taken part in the society’s activities for their support and the trust in our work throughout 2015. We also wish each and every one of the Brazilian researchers and students a merry Christmas and a year of 2016 full of success and accomplishments.
SBPMat is a young society, but still in its youth it has been confirming its role of well-representing the research in Science and Technology on the several sectors of the great field of Materials. SBPMat’s continuous growth is due to the contribution of the researchers and students coming from the four corners of Brazil, whose work has been effectively contributing to the country’s development. Once again, the annual meeting held in the city of Rio de Janeiro in late September was a success, and confirmed the quality of Brazilian research in the several Materials areas. Over 2,000 works were presented in the 26 symposia, with a large participation by youngsters, and with the presence of 40 countries. The work carried out by Professors Marco Cremona and Fernando Lázaro Freire Jr., by the symposia organizers and the entire support team was excellent. We extend our deepest thanks to them all. We were also very happy to have for the first time a symposium entirely organized by students, belonging to several groups of the “University Chapters” program.
SBPMat’s Bulletin, in Portuguese and English versions, continues to have excellent penetration in Brazil and abroad, proving its excellent quality. All of this progress led SBPMat to be a part of the management of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS), an entity that congregates Materials societies, including societies from Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia.
Once again we wish everyone, and especially the new Executive Office which is to take office soon, great success in 2016.
[Paper: Photovoltaic effect in Bi2TeO5 photorefractive Crystal. Ivan de Oliveira, Danilo Augusto Capovilla, Jesiel F. Carvalho, Renata Montenegro, Zanine V. Fabris and Jaime Frejlich. Appl. Phys. Lett. 107, 151905 (2015). DOI: 10.1063/1.4933097.]
New member of the family of photovoltaic materials
The photovoltaic effect consists in the generation of direct electrical current in a material, in consequence of its exposure to light, in the absence of an applied electric field.
In an article recently published in Applied Physics Letters, a Brazilian team of scientists presented striking experimental evidences of the presence of photovoltaic effect in bismuth telluride (Bi2TeO5) crystals. Until the publication of the paper, the material was known, for example, for being photorefractive (its reafractive index is altered in consequence of its exposure to light), but there was no evidence of its photovoltaic nature.
“The greatest contribution of this article lays in the fact that we showed for the first time that the Bi2TeO5 crystals exhibit the photovoltaic effect”, highlights Ivan de Oliveira, Professor of Faculty of Technology (FT) at State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and author of the said article.
The published work was performed at the Optics Laboratory at FT – Unicamp, in the city of Limeira (SP), in collaboration with the Physics of Materials Group of the Federal University of Goiás e with the Optics Laboratory of the Institute of Physics “Gleb Wataghin” at UNICAMP. The collaborators gathered their experience in manufacture and characterization, respectively, of photorefractive crystals.
The study that originated the article is part of the master’s degree research of Danilo Augusto Capovilla, under the guidance of Professor Oliveira, in which some results indicated that the Bi2TeO5 crystals might exhibit photovoltaic effects. “Upon such indications, we performed several experiments and managed, using direct and indirect measures, to show that the Bi2TeO5 crystals in fact present the photovoltaic effect”, says professor Oliveira. “The demonstration of the effect was performed using non-holographic techniques and, mainly, stabilized holographic record techniques”, he completes.
One of the experiments conducted consisted in measuring the photovoltaic current of the non-doped bismuth tellurite sample and, for comparison, of a material in which the photovoltaic effect is already known, the iron-doped lithium niobate.
Scheme of direct measure of photovoltaic effect in Bi2TeO5 crystals. The sample is lighted with laser light and a current is generated in the volume of the material. The current is generated in the absence of electric field.
In addition to leave some questions which answers might be searched in new researches, such as the origin of the photovoltaic effect in the studied crystal, the article creates possible applications to bismuth telluride in light conversion into electricity, information storage and manufacture of optical components.
The authors of the paper, from the left: Prof. Ivan de Oliveira (FT – UNICAMP), Prof. Jaime Frejlich (IFGW- UNICAMP), Prof. Jesiel Freitas Carvalho (IF – UFG), Danilo Augusto Capovilla (FT – UNICAMP), Zanine Vargas Fabris (IF – UFG), Renata Pereira Montenegro (IF – UFG).
Professor Roberto Mendonça Faria (São Carlos Institute of Physics – University of São Paulo), president of SBPMat since 2012, was elected second vice-president of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS), an international association whose members are scientific societies or technical groups interested in promoting interdisciplinary research and education in the Materials field. IUMRS currently congregates the materials research societies of Africa, Australia, Brazil, China, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan.
The election was made by voting during the IUMRS-ICAM event (Jeju, Korea, October 25 to 29), more precisely at the General Assembly of IUMRS, the annual meeting of the representatives of the adhering bodies. The participants at the meeting voted after hearing the candidates’ action plans. Professor Faria, representing SBPMat, won the voting against researchers from China, Japan and United States. His proposal consisted in a stronger activity in the Latin American countries.
Succeeding a representative of the Chinese materials research society (Chinese – MRS), Prof. Yafang Hane, Faria takes over for two years the second vice-presidency of IUMRS, from January 1st, 2016 onwards.
Professor Robert Chang (Northwestern University), general secretary of IUMRS and one of the founders of the entity, stated that he expects that Professor Faria’s participation in the Executive Board of IUMRS will help expand the entity’s activities in South America.
[Paper: Functionalized nanomaterials: are they effective to perform gene delivery to difficult-to-transfect cells with no cytotoxicity? Tonelli, F.M.P. ; Lacerda, S. M. S. N.; Paiva, N. C. O.; Pacheco, F. G.; Scalzo Junior, S. R. A.; de Macedo, F. H. P.; Cruz, J. S.; Pinto, M. C. X.; Correa Junior, J. D.; Ladeira, L. O.; França, L. R.; Guatimosim, S.; Resende, R. R. Nanoscale, 2015,7, 18036-18043. DOI: 10.1039/C5NR04173B]
Nanomaterials may be useful in processes in which one introduces genes (DNA segments) into particular cells in a controlled manner. These processes are called transfections and can be aimed at curing diseases caused by the lack of a certain gene (gene therapy) or obtaining transgenic organisms, to name but a few examples.
In a study conducted in Brazil by a multidisciplinary team, it was tested the efficiency of several nanomaterials in delivering genes into different types of rat and human cells, all considered difficult to be transfected (hard-to-transfect cells).
The study findings were recently published as a communication on the scientific journal Nanoscale and were the subject of patent applications to INPI (Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office).
The research, which was conducted in only six months, counting from the project design to the submission of the article, involved the work of thirteen scientists from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), who were organized into a research network in nanobiotechnology initiated in partnership with FAPEMIG (Minas Gerais state research foundation). “The multidisciplinary approach of the group was instrumental in carrying out the work in a short period of time and in order for it to be accepted for publication in Nanoscale”, says Rodrigo Resende, a professor in the UFMG’s Department of Biochemistry and Immunology, and corresponding author of the article published on Nanoscale.
Photo panel of the authors of the article. From left to right and top to bottom: Fernanda Tonelli, Nicole Paiva, Mauro Xavier, Rodrigo Resende, Samyra Nassif, Luiz França, Sérgio Scalzo, Silvia Guatimosim, Flávia Pacheco, Luiz Ladeira, José Dias, Jader Cruz.
The idea that led to the research came from Fernanda Maria Policarpo Tonelli’s research thesis, conducted with Resende’s supervision in order to obtain her master’s degree in Biochemistry and Immunology. “The work involved spermatogonial stem cells from tilapias (primary culture), which are hard-to-transfect”, says the professor. “In trying to deliver genes of interest to these cells, we noticed that this was a difficult task”, he says. Once the student realized that the use of functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes made the process easier, it came up the idea of systematically checking the ability of a series of functionalized nanomaterials to deliver genes to hard-to-transfect cells.
Indeed, nanomaterials are interesting candidates to be gene delivery vehicles, not only by the variety of sizes, shapes and properties that can be obtained by the functionalization and the numerous methods of synthesis, but also because they provide high protection to the gene that they must deliver. “They prevent the deterioration of the nucleic acid during the extra and intracellular trafficking”, says Resende. “In addition, among the nanomaterials, the gold nanorods also provide a very useful feature to the gene delivery: the possibility of photothermal release; i.e., the release of genes can be induced to the nanocomplex with exposure to light at the proper wavelength”, adds the professor.
To conduct the experimental research that led to the article on Nanoscale, Resende and his colleagues manufactured some nanomaterials. Carbon nanotubes, gold nanorods, nanodiamonds and nano-graphene oxide were synthesized at the Nanomaterials Laboratory of the UFMG´s Institute of Exact Sciences and the UFMG´s Cell Signaling and Nanobiotechnology Laboratory, while phosphate nanocomposites were manufactured at the Laboratory of Chemical-Biological Interactions and Animal Reproduction of the Department of Morphology of said university.
Following the above mentioned, all nanomaterials were functionalized; i.e., groups of atoms were added to their surfaces so as to achieve specific chemical properties in the materials. This part of the research and almost all of the subsequent experiments were conducted at the Cell Signaling and Nanobiotechnology Laboratory of the Department of Biochemistry and Immunology and the Cell Biology Laboratory of the Department of Morphology, also at UFMG. The actual functionalization of the nanomaterials was confirmed by Fourier-Transform Near-Infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopic analyzes, conducted at the Nuclear Technology Development Center, located in the UFMG’s campus. Thanks to the functionalization, the nanomaterials stuck to the DNA containing the gene of interest, forming nanocomplexes.
Then, the scientists exposed to the nanocomplexes the rat and human cells, obtained at laboratories of the UFMG’s departments of Physiology and Pharmacology and of Biochemistry and Immunology.
Finally, the researchers observed, for each material and for each type of cell studied, whether the gene of interest had entered the cell and was conducting its functions at the new address.
Scheme of the main stages of the study. The nanomaterials were functionalized to associate themselves with the plasmid DNA containing the gene of interest (in this case, the gene of the cyan fluorescent protein). The hard-to-transfect cells were then exposed to the nanocomplexes (functionalized nanomaterial – plasmid DNA), and it was observed the fluorescent protein expression.
The results published on Nanoscale show that, in general, the nanomaterials are good vehicles for delivering genes to hard-to-transfect cells, equaling or surpassing, in some cases, the capacity of commercially available reagents. Fact: the synthesis of the nanomaterials costs less than the purchase of some reagents.
In addition, the authors of the communication checked the cytotoxicity of each nanomaterial for each cell studied and were able to determine the relevant cell death rates. The scientists concluded that, in proper concentrations, the nanomaterials studied have low cytotoxicity.
These UFMG team’s findings can now be applied to researches involving gene delivery. “For example, if one wishes to study the function of a particular protein in cardiomyocytes and it is necessary to express this protein in these cells, using functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes is more efficient than the lipofection with the Lipofectamine 2000 commercial reagent”, illustrates the Resende.
“As for the slightly more distant applications, it is also a possibility to adapt the methodology aiming at the feasibility of gene therapy and transgenesis mediated by nanomaterials”, continues Resende, who says that his research group is already conducting further studies in vitro and in vivo to develop such applications.
According to Resende, another consequence of the article may arise given the difference in behavior observed in the different cells for different nanomaterials. “This offers the possibility of developing studies on how the delivered genes are internalized by each cell and for what reason there are differences in efficiency observed in our study”, says the professor.
The research was funded by Brazlian agenciesCNPq and APEMIG, the National Institute of Science and Technology in Carbon Nanomaterial and the Nanocell Institute, an independent organization founded by the Professor Rodrigo Resende’s research group, for the promotion of science and education.
The fifth person from the left is Edroaldo´s father, representing the author, who is doing postdoc in the USA, at the ceremony. (Photo: Haydée Vieira – CCS/Capes)
The doctoral thesis that won the Capes Award for Doctoral Theses in the field of materials research was also winner of a Grand Capes Award. The thesis was defended in 2014 by Edroaldo Lummertz da Rocha to obtain the doctoral degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). The award was delivered in a ceremony, in December 10th at Capes central office, in Brasília.
The Grand Award selects the best thesis of each of the three major evaluation areas of Capes, which is the government agency linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Education in charge of promoting high standards for post-graduate courses in Brazil. To run for the Grand Award, the authors of winners theses in the Capes Award must present a video lesson of 20 to 30 minutes, destined to high school students, approaching the thesis theme in a proper way to the target audience.
In his video, Edroaldo presents the contributions of his doctorate research to the development of nanostructures that, introduced in the human body, would have therapeutically effects against cancer and, at the same time, would generate less collateral effect than the methods currently used (surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy). To present these contributions, the video explains concepts such as cancer and bionanotecnology. The video also presents the development of CellNet software, in which Edroaldo participated during his doctorate, which helps in the investigation of transformation of cells from a type to another (for example, stem-cell in other cells or skin cells in heart cells). See here the video lesson prepared by Edroaldo and also the videos of the other candidates to the Grand Award.
The call for symposia proposals for the XV SBPMat Meeting is open until February 11th. The event will be held from September 25 to 29, 2016 in the city of Campinas (SP), in the convention center Expo D. Pedro.
