Paulo Homem De Bittencourt, Jr.

Graduating from the University of São Paulo Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences with a BSc in Pharmacy in 1989, Dr. Homem de Bittencourt joined the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the University of São Paulo where he obtained a M.Sc. in Physiology in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Physiology in 1995 on lipid metabolism of immune cells under the supervision of Prof. Rui Curi. He took up a postdoctoral position with Prof. Maria Gabriella Santoro in the University of Rome/Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy where he worked on the role of cyclopentenone prostaglandins for the regulation redox status in rapidly-proliferating cells. He moved to The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil in 1996 to take up a lectureship in Physiology, where he set up a cellular physiology research group and became responsible for the teaching of physiology to medical and pharmaceutical sciences students. He received promotion to Associate Professor of Physiology of the permanent UFRGS staff in 2006. Since his appointment to UFRGS, Prof. Homem de Bittencourt has published approximately 60 research papers and review articles in the field of atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, heat shock proteins and exercise, and has received approximately US$ 2.1 million in grant funding as Lead Applicant and US$ 750,000 as a Co-applicant in the field of lipid metabolism in chronic disease (atherosclerosis and diabetes).