Date: 8 April 2026
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: ZOOM & ANFITEATRO 1
Protozoan parasites such as Trypanosoma cruzi, Leishmania, and Plasmodium face a major challenge in their life cycle: surviving and adapting within their hosts. Beyond evading the immune system, they must cope with nutrient limitations and maintain a functional metabolic network to sustain energy production and growth.
Metabolism is therefore a key target for drug discovery. Inhibiting essential metabolic enzymes can disrupt parasite survival and collapse their biological networks. However, studying metabolism at a system-wide level is experimentally challenging.
This GHTM session will explore how Systems Biology and genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) enable computational reconstruction and analysis of metabolic networks using genomic data. These approaches allow simulation of metabolic fluxes, identification of essential genes and reactions, prediction of metabolic reprogramming, auxotrophies, and host–pathogen interactions.
Join us to discover how computational biology can generate new hypotheses and support the search for novel therapeutic targets in parasitic diseases.
About Bruno Ribeiro Pinto
Bruno Ribeiro Pinto is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Parasitology at the Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas II, at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), in Brazil. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei (2017), Minas Gerais, Brazil, and a PhD in Applied Biochemistry from the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (2023), also in Minas Gerais, Brazil. His academic and research trajectory has been focused on biochemistry, parasitology, and systems-level approaches to understanding biological processes in protozoan parasites. As a postdoctoral fellow at USP, he currently works under the supervision of Prof. Ariel Mariano Silber, contributing to research efforts in parasite biology, metabolism, and host–pathogen interactions. His work integrates experimental and computational approaches to investigate fundamental mechanisms of parasite survival, with potential applications in the identification of novel therapeutic targets.
If you are a GHTM member, you will receive the details of the session by e-mail. If you are not a GHTM member and would like to join the session, please contact us at ghtm-info@ihmt.unl.pt.
