Natural products play a crucial role in the discovery of new drugs. Biologist Daniela Trivella is at the forefront of developing an innovative identification process for these compounds. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomolecular Physical Sciences from the University of São Paulo and has completed post-doctoral work at several prestigious institutions, including the UNICAMP Chemistry Institute, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California in the United States, and the Cell Signaling Institute at the University of Nottingham in England. When she steps away from her research, Daniela enjoys gathering her family for a home-cooked meal. She maintains her physical health through swimming and playing soccer. In the midst of publishing scientific articles, she also finds time to indulge in her passion for playing the drums.
Daniela Barretto Barbosa Trivella
Chemistry, Computer Science, Life Sciences
Projects
Natural products serve as an invaluable source of chemical structures for drug development. However, the labor-intensive experimental steps and the requirement for large amounts of input (natural extract) restrict the implementation and success of drug discovery projects based on natural products. Consequently, we propose the establishment of the NP3 platform. This computational platform aims to expedite the process of identifying new bioactive natural products and their binding sites on target proteins. It does so based on three unconventional experimental inputs: i) the electronic density of the inhibitor, observed from protein crystallography data; ii) mass fragmentation data, obtained from LC-MS/MS analysis; iii) the biological activity of the chemical samples. These experimental data are derived from unpurified natural product samples at the beginning of the discovery process. Their automated processing via the NP3 platform is expected to accelerate the discovery phase of bioactive natural products, thereby facilitating the development of new drugs derived from natural products.
Amount invested
2nd phase: R$ 1,000,000.00 (R$ 700,000.00 + R$ 300,000.00 optional bonus for the integration and training of people from underrepresented groups in science)
