Lab Cell and Membrane

Waleska Kerllen Martins, Ph.D.

Investigation of photoinduced mechanisms and the role of autophagy in neoplastic and aging-related diseases

LCM focus

The Cell and Membrane Laboratory (LCM) focuses on basic and translational research, with an emphasis on autophagy in human non-malignant and malignant cells. The goal is to identify biomarkers and demonstrate advancements in autophagy modulation, highlighting its role from cellular protection to processes such as programmed cell death or senescence.

The autophagy process is evaluated through a multidisciplinary approach, combining genetic, cytological, biochemical, and photochemical methods in 2D and 3D human cell cultures. This allows us to understand its regulatory role as a mechanism for maintaining homeostasis and its therapeutic applicability in treating age-related cellular diseases, including cancer.

Beyond our research efforts, LCM aims to engage in outreach programs, workshops, training sessions, and collaborative projects with community groups or schools. These initiatives are designed to apply research findings, facilitate knowledge transfer, and tackle real-world problems or needs beyond the academic realm. As part of this commitment, we collaborate with students in basic education to enhance their understanding of Science and Biotechnology through our extension projects DNAr-se and CELLULÁ.

If this has stimulated your interest, we invite you to check out our latest publications!

And if you are passionate about science, technology, and research, we would love to have you on our team.

Please reach out to us to discuss collaboration opportunities and share knowledge.

We look forward to working together and further advancing our projects!

Funding & Support

The Lab cell and membrane is pleased to acknowledge the generous support of the following major funders:

Waleska Kerllen Martins Lab

Pharmacist, Specialist in Clinical Research and PhD in Sciences (Oncology) and Post-Doctorate in Biochemistry.

Contact

Waleska Kerllen Martins, PhD

Professor and Scientific Lider

wkerllenmartins@gmail.com

Phone: 55+(011) 3341-6559

Recent publications

To read click on the Figures to have open access. Good reading and learning!!!

Frontiers in Oncology (2021)

In this review we provided insights into the mechanisms by which PDT can be used to modulate autophagy and emphasizes how this field represents a promising therapeutic strategy for cancer treatment.

Current Research in Pharmacology and Drug Discovery (2021)

Autophagy highlights a promising therapeutic/preventive avenue to deal with neurodegenerative, cardiac, or cancer diseases.

Autophagy modulation may implicate off-target effects if the specificity of the current drugs would not be addressed.

Frontiers in Oncology (2021)

This collection compiles some of the most recent advances in the knowledge of the autophagic pathway and its involvement in human cancer development. Carcinogenesis implies proliferation, tissue invasion, vascularization, and modulation of the immune system. Herein, we expanded our knowledge about autophagy in carcinogenesis, showing how it has been engaged in various processes, including tumor progression, cancer-related thrombosis and metastasis, cancer dormancy linked to stem cell behavior and quiescence, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), intercellular communications, cell-stroma interactions, and tumor microenvironment (TME), immune responses, treatment resistance and tumor-adaptative response.

Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics (2021)

In this review, we analyze the relationships between membrane alterations induced by photo-oxidation and the biochemical responses in mammalian cells. We specifically address the impact of photosensitization reactions in membranes of different organelles such as mitochondria, lysosome, endoplasmic reticulum, and plasma membrane, and the subsequent responses of eukaryotic cells.

Selected publications

Cover in Autophagy (2019)

ACM (2020) in portuguese

Rapid screening of potential autophagic inductor agents using mammalian cell lines

A useful procedure to isolate simultaneously DNA and RNA from a single tumor sample

Identifying Specific Subcellular Organelle Damage by Photosensitized Oxidations

News in Science and Biotechnology

The light treat, have ever read about it?

Biophotonics is an area of science that employs light as a therapeutic strategy with wide application in the area of health - Dentistry, Pharmacy, and Medicine. It has emerged, for example, as an alternative endeavor to mitigate multidrug-resistant bacteria strains (check the overview of Professor Tim Maisch) and it might enable the management of COVID sequelae. Among others!!!

Check out the latest III FOTnS here to learn a little more about the ongoing scientific work.

The LCM participated in the III FOTnS, check !!!

Acridine orange is a promising endeavor to photoinduce autophagy-associated cell death

Research carried out by the Institute of Chemistry of USP (Dr. Mauricio Baptista) in partnership with the Laboratory of Cells and Membranes of UNIAN-SP (Profa). Waleska Martins) receives honorable mention in the III FOTnS as an original work. This work is a preclinical study aimed at the investigation of a biotechnological process based on the acridine orange dye to induce, after photoactivation with blue light, autophagy-associated cell death in mammalian cells.

Check it on Youtube (1:16:32 / 5:01:55).

Lysophagy: as a therapeutic target or to predict prognosis for human cutaneous melanoma?

The LCM´s member Gabriel Paiva was one of the speakers at the international event IX WORKSHOP ON MODELS OF MELANOMA AND TRANSLATIONAL ONCOLOGY, presenting the preliminary results of his master's degree in Pharmacy. Check out the highlights of his talking below!!!