Team

Ana Carolina Ramos Guimarães

Researcher, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz)

Dr. Ramos is a Researcher in Computational and Systems Biology at Fiocruz. She holds a BSc degree (2003) in Biology from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). She received her Master’s degree (2006) and PhD (2010) on Cellular and Molecular Biology at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation – Brazil) where she focused on bioinformatics and computational biology. Since 2013, she has been a researcher at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation working on the identification of molecular targets for drug development against parasitic organisms.

João Herminio

Researcher, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Ceará Division

Dr. Herminio is a public health researcher with a degree in Biological Sciences, master’s degree in biophysics and a PhD in cellular and molecular biology. His area of study is focused on computational simulations of biological systems, particularly protein-protein interactions. His research fields are molecular dynamics of proteins and drugs, prediction of protein structures, molecular docking and computational prediction of free energy. His current interest is the development and application of drug design using “de novo” methods and virtual screening.

Jair L. Siqueira-Neto

Assistant Professor, University of California at San Diego                                                                                                                                                                            

Dr. Jair Siqueira-Neto is Director of the Screening Center at University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and Assistant Professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences – UCSD. He has experience in drug discovery and development for tropical neglected disease, having worked at the Institut Pasteur Korea and at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) prior to becoming faculty at UCSD. He was a pioneer in the development of the first phenotypic screening for Leishmania sp. and Trypanosoma cruzi. His research is focused on the development and implementation of high-throughput and high-content screening assays to identify active compounds against infectious agents. He is also interested in studying parasite-host interaction to understand the basics of disease and new targets for chemotherapy. His goal in this project will be to test the candidate compounds generated by this consortium for anti-viral activity.

Joel S. Freundlich

Associate Professor, Rutgers University

Medicinal Chemistry Consultant

Dr. Joel Freundlich is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Physiology & Neuroscience and of Medicine at Rutgers University–New Jersey Medical School. Prior to his return to academic research in 2006, he spent eight years in the pharmaceutical industry as a medicinal chemist. His undergraduate and master’s degree training were in chemical engineering at Cornell University as a McMullen Dean’s Scholar. He received his doctorate in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the tutelage of 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awardee Richard Schrock.