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News from Latin America

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 6-Jun-2025 23:09 ET (7-Jun-2025 03:09 GMT/UTC)

A new, highly effective and selective molecule is developed to fight malaria

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In tests with mice and in vivo culture, molecule designed in Brazil was capable of killing Plasmodium resistant strains and reducing the number of parasites in the bloodstream by 62 percent without attacking cells of the host organism.

Journal: Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP

A sterile line of Aedes aegypti is developed to fight off arbovirosis

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Business Announcement

In Brazil, male specimens with defective sperm are created in lab; manufacturing the transgenic mosquito in large scale could integrate coordinated strategies to control dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever epidemics.

Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP

Low-protein diet during pregnancy increases prostate cancer risk in offspring

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Experiments with rats show that intrauterine protein restriction induces sex hormone imbalance, which appears to favor development of cancer in old age. The rate of prostate tumor development reached 50 percent among the old rats submitted to low-protein diet during pregnancy and lactation alike.

Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation -- FAPESP

Each tropical tree species specializes in getting the nutrients it needs

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers looking for general patterns in the way tropical trees capture nutrients were surprised to find that every species has its own way of getting the nutrients it needs. The concept of biodiversity extends to their behavior.

Journal: Ecology Letters
Funder: HSBC Bank USA, Stanley Motta, Small World Institute Fund, Hoch Family, Smithsonian Institution, National Science Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation

Key gene to accelerate sugarcane growth is identified

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Brazilian researchers developed a sugarcane line with the ScGAI gene expression silenced. The modification resulted in an adequate phenotype for use in 2G ethanol production, featuring a bigger culm and more biomass.

Journal: Journal of Experimental Botany
Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP

Study elucidates epigenetic mechanisms behind autoimmune diseases

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Brazilian researchers use an editing tool to investigate a gene that plays a key role in eliminating autoaggressive cells and controlling the development of diseases such as type 1 diabetes. In tests with mice, the disrupting of medullary thymic epithelial cells gene impaired the processing of mRNA involved in their adhesion to autoaggressive T lymphocytes.

Journal: Frontiers in Immunology
Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP

Tropical forest seeds use three strategies to survive

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

From tiny banana seeds to giant coconuts, it's tough for seeds to survive in tropical soils where they are under constant attack by fungi, bacteria, insects and animals. By understanding how seeds defend themselves, tropical biologists contribute to reforestation, crop management and sustainable agriculture in the tropics.

Journal: Ecology
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation and Simons Foundation

Study shows how Oropouche virus replicates in human cells

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Results described in PLOS Pathogens point to potential targets worth exploring in effort to halt infection by the emerging virus, which is transmitted by the C. paraensis midge. Oropouche's strategy of 'hijacking' the Golgi complex in order to replicate itself has never been described before, state the researchers.

Journal: PLOS Pathogens
Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP

New two-dimensional material could revolutionize solar fuel generation

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

International group of researchers including Brazilian scientists obtain from hematite a new material with application as a photocatalyst, christened 'hematene.' The three-atom thick hematene is a ferromagnetic material, as opposed to the iron ore from which it was created from.

Journal: Nature Nanotechnology
Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP

Research shows how the Little Ice Age affected South American climate

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

For the first time, scientists reconstruct the rainfall distribution in Brazil during the climate changes that marked the Middle Ages using isotopic records from caves.

Funder: Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP