Regina Pekelmann Markus

Full Professor of the Institute of Biosciences at the University of São Paulo and Senior Researcher at CNPq. Member of the Academies of Sciences of the State of São Paulo (ACIESP, 1980) and Brazilian (ABC, 2012). Graduated in Biomedical Sciences from Escola Paulista de Medicina (1970) and Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the same institution in 1974. Full Professor in Pharmacology from USP (1989). Since the beginning of her career, she has been active in Scientific Societies and has been President of SBFTE (Brazilian Society of Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutics) and member of FESBE and SBPC Board of Directors as General Secretary and Treasurer. She served on Advisory Committees of CAPES and CNPq, Deliberative Council CNPq and titular of the Secretariat for Research and Development Policies and Programs of MCTI (2003) and the National Council for Ethics in Research in Laboratory Animals. She is currently the president of the Evaluation Committee of Embrapii. Since 2007 he has served as Vice-President of the Friends Association of the Weizmann Institute, Brazil. She is a reviewer for several international journals and belongs to the Editorial Board of the Journal Pineal Research, Frontiers in Cellular Endocrinology and Brain Behavior and Immunity. She co-chaired the 3rd SCR FASEB on Melatonin Biology, Clinics and Therapeutics (2013, Niagara Falls, USA) and is a member of the International Union for Pharmacology Committee (IUPHAR) for melatonin receptors. Research line: He works in the field of Chronopharmacology with emphasis on the role of melatonin on the inflammatory response and cancer. He consolidated knowledge of the area by proposing the Pineal-Immune Axis, responsible for the alternation between melatonin production by pineal or immunocompetent cells. Currently, it is developing new molecular platforms of selective and mixed ligands of melatonin receptors, delivering cancer therapies, overweight and neurodegenerative diseases based on the concept of the Pine-Immune Axis, proposed by the group led by Regina P Markus. In 2018, this axis was considered as an organizing system between the effects of melatonin as a chronobiotic agent and modulator of the immune system in Brit's editorial. J. Pharmacol. Next, work begins to emerge from different groups that cite the process of controlling the pineal and extra-pineal production of melatonin, as regulated by the pineal-immune axis. The search for theory to organize the knowledge of melatonin as a chronobiotic agent and an immunomodulatory agent and the different sources of melatonin synthesis allowed the creation of a gene index that relates synthesis enzymes and degradation to estimate the capacity of a fabric synthesize melatonin. These data, applied to different tumors, can be used as a prognostic index of evolution. In collaboration with researchers at the Weizmann Institute for Research in Israel in 2018, he proposes that the bone marrow of mice can rhythmically synthesize melatonin under the direct command of the sympathetic nervous system and coupled to an endogenous rate of TNF. These are unpublished findings that will promote a paradigm shift in the understanding of the physiology of the formation of blood and bone cells, and also in spinal dysfunctions. More recently, considering the advances that the group has made in understanding the purinergic control of melatonin production, the hypothesis has been successfully evaluated that against high concentrations of external ATP, which may be due to cell death in the vicinity of the pineal gland, the precursor of melatonin (N-acetylserotonin) becomes the dark hormone. (Source: Lattes Curriculum)