Rui M. M. Brito
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Associate Professor PhD, PI, Group Leader Email: rbrito@ci.uc.pt Ph. (+351) 239 854 451 Fax (+351) 239 827 703 |
Rui M. M. Brito got his PhD
in Biochemistry at Rice University, Houston, USA, in 1992, working on the
characterization of protein-ligand interactions by NMR and other biophysical
techniques. He then joined the group of Prof. Christopher Dobson at the
University of Oxford, UK, for 2 years, working on protein folding and
stability, before returning to Portugal. He is now a tenured Associate
Professor in the Department of Chemistry (Faculty of Science and Technology) of
the University of Coimbra, and leader of the Structural and Computational
Biology group at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC).
Additionally, he is in charge of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory of
the Coimbra Chemistry Center and he is the national coordinator
of the international volunteer computing platform Ibercivis.
His main research interests
are:
- protein structure, stability and folding: their
relationship to function and pathology;
- molecular mechanisms of amyloid formation;
- protein-ligand interactions and rational drug
design;
and in his group several
methodological approaches are used, including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR),
circular dichroism (CD), fluorescence spectroscopy and computational
methodologies such as molecular dynamics (MD) and molecular modelling.
Rui. M. M. Brito has
supervised more than 30 undergraduate, Master and PhD students in Biological
Chemistry and Biochemistry, which then moved to the industry in Portugal, or
pursued further studies or scientific careers in Portugal or abroad. Moreover,
he often participates in advanced training of young researchers through
lecturing in MSc and PhD programs at the University of Coimbra and other
Universities.
Selected Publications
- Henriques, E.S,
Brito, R.M.M., Soares, H., Ventura, S., de Oliveira, V.L., Parkhouse, R.M.E.
(2011) "Modeling of the Toll-like receptor 3 and a putative Toll-like
receptor 3 antagonist encoded by the African swine fever virus", Protein
Sci. 20(2), pp. 247-255.
- Simões, C.J.V.,
Mukherjee, T., Brito R.M.M., Jackson, R.M. (2010) "Toward the Discovery of
Functional Transthyretin Amyloid Inhibitors: Application of Virtual Screening
Methods", J. Chem. Inf. Model. 50(10), pp. 1806-1820.
- Rodrigues, J.R.,
Simões, C.J.V., Silva, C.G., Brito, R.M.M. (2010) "Potentially amyloidogenic
conformational intermediates populate the unfolding landscape of transthyretin:
insights from molecular dynamics simulations", Protein Sci. 19(2),
202-219.
- Simões,
C.J.V., Rivero, A., Brito, R.M.M. (2010). "Searching for
Anti-Amyloid Drugs with the Help of Citizens: the “AMILOIDE” Project on the IBERCIVIS
Platform". ERCIM News 82, 25-26.
- Swain, M., Silva,
C.G., Loureiro-Ferreira, N., Ostropytskyy, V., Brito, J., Riche, O., Stahl, F.,
Dubitzky, W., and Brito, R.M.M. (2010). "P-found: Grid-enabling distributed
repositories of protein folding and unfolding simulations for data mining". Futur. Gener.
Comp. Syst. 26(3), 424-433.
- Pereira, M.,
Costa, V.S, Camacho, R., Fonseca, N.A., Simões, C., and Brito, R.M.M. (2009). "Comparative
Study of Classification Algorithms Using Molecular Descriptors in Toxicological
DataBases". Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics 5676, 121-132.
- Camacho, R., Alves, A., Silva, C.G., and Brito, R.M.M.
(2008) "On Mining Protein Unfoling
Simulation Data with Inductive Logic Programming", Advances in Soft Computing 49, 175-179.
- Correia, B. E., Loureiro-Ferreira, N., Rodrigues, J. R. and Brito, R. M. M.
(2006). "A structural model of an amyloid protofilament of
Transthyretin". Protein Sci. 15(1),
28-32.
- Vaz, D. C., Rodrigues, J. R., Sebald, W., Dobson,
C. M. and Brito, R. M. M. (2006). "Enthalpic and entropic contributions mediate
the role of disulfide bonds on the conformational stability of Interleukin-4". Protein Sci. 15(1), 33-44.
- Azevedo, P.J.,
Silva, C.G., Rodrigues, J.R., Loureiro-Ferreira, N. and Brito, R.M.M. (2005) "Detection of Hydrophobic Clusters in Molecular Dynamics Protein Unfolding
Simulations Using Association Rules", Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences 3725, 329-337.
- Berrar, D., Stahl, F., Silva, C.G., Brito, R.M.M, Dubitzky, W. (2005) "Towards data warehousing, mining of protein unfolding simulation data", J. Clin. Monit. Comput. 15(4-5), pp. 307-317.
- Brito, R.M.M., Dubitzky, W., Rodrigues, J.R. (2004) "Protein Folding and Unfolding Simulations: a New Challenge for Data Mining", OMICS 8(2), 153-166.
- Brito, R. M. M., Damas, A. M., and Saraiva, M. J. S. (2003). "Amyloid Formation by Transthyretin: From Protein Stability to Protein
Aggregation" (review). Current Medicinal Chemistry - Immun. Endoc.
& Metab. Agents 3(4), 349-360.
- Quintas, A., Vaz, D. C., Cardoso, I., Saraiva, M. J. M., and Brito, R. M.
M. (2001). "Tetramer Dissociation and
Monomer Partial Unfolding Precedes Protofibril Formation in Amyloidogenic
Transthyretin Variants". J. Biol. Chem. 276(29), 27207-27213.
- Shnyrov, V.L., Villar, E., Zhadan, G.G.,
Sanchez-Ruiz, J.M., Quintas, A., Saraiva, M.J.M., Brito, R.M.M. (2000) "Comparative Calorimetric Study of Non-amyloidogenic and Amyloidogenic Variants
of the Homotetrameric Protein Transthyretin", Biophys. Chem. 88(1-3),
61-67.
