17-May-2021
Members of the Structural Biology team at the University of Sao Paulo benefitted from two trips to European research facilities, to the Diamond Synchrotron, Oxford, UK and to study NMR measurements at the University of Florence.
Figure 1. Diamond Light Source Instruct Centre UK
Richard Garrett, Humberto Pereira and Italo Cavini visited the European facilities as part of a call from Instruct-ERIC, designed to enhance collaboration between Latin American research groups and European Research Infrastructures.
The quality of the data collected meant that the trips contributed significantly to the understanding of septin polymerisation, with more analysis to be carried out for further investigation.
Richard Garratt commented, “Very few high-resolution spectrometers dedicated to biomolecular NMR are currently available in Brazil. As a result, a one-week measurement period can take several months to schedule due to the high demand. The Instruct-ERIC call represented an excellent alternative in allowing us to visit CERM, the Instruct centre in Florence, significantly helping our research to move forward.”
Figure 2. The University of Florence Instruct Centre IT
“The proposal was submitted by the end of May 2019. Right after approval, the visit was very efficiently scheduled for November 2019. The communication with the hub and the specialists was agile and efficient and we were very impressed by the excellent technical support provided by the Centre.”
The CYTED project, designed to improve collaboration between Europe and Latin America in the study of infectious diseases, helped provide funding for the visit.
Instruct-ERIC, partner in the the EU-LAC ResInfra project, continues to encourage researchers from Latin America to explore the offering of structural biology facilities available. Instruct offers peer reviewed access to advanced structural biology technology to researchers around the world.
