Profile

I live in Edinburgh with my wife and 2 children. I come from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and after I finished my undergraduate degree I moved to Israel where I continued studying for master and PhD degrees. I graduated at the end of 2007 and travelled to the Netherlands to work at the Eindhoven University of Technology where I stayed until 2013 when I moved to Scotland.

I have always liked science but it was only during my PhD that I found a research topic that I really like.

Outside work, I practice japanese martial arts, mainly aikido, which I am very passionate about. I am very interested in japanese history and culture. I also like travelling, reading and playing computer games when I have the time, though it is sometimes hard with the kids at home.

I study how animals make hard materials – bone, teeth, sea shells, pealrs,, sea urchin spines… these are all made of hard minerals like calcium phosphate or calcium carbonate. Thanks to these minerals, our bones are strong enough to support our bodies, our teeth are strong enough to chew food, sea shells can protect the animal living inside and sea urchin spines are pointy and sharp and painful to step on! There are many examples in nature of hard materials like these, used for different functions and made of different minerals. Some bacteria have inside very tiny magnets that they use as a compass, there are animals with teeth made of iron, others with a skeleton made of glass.

I am very interested in learning how animals make these hard materials. They are much stronger than minerals that are not of biological origin. For example the chalk that we use to draw on blackboards and sea shells are made of the same material, but of course sea shells are much harder and stronger. You cannot use them to draw on the floor or on a blackboard! So knowing what makes the sea shells different to chalk is one of the things that we want to learn.

Learning how organisms make all these different materials, used for different purposes, is not only about scientific curiosity. It can also help us as a society. If we understand what our bones are made of, what makes them strong, and how our bodies make new bone will help us to create better implant materials or other treatments in case of severe fractures or illnesses that affect the skeleton. Learning about sea shells, sea urchin spines are glass skeletons can help us to create new materials that share some of these properties – that are very strong, for example.

To study these materials I use electron microscopy quite a lot. We need to be able to see things to understand them, and microscopy is one of the best (and sometimes the only) way.

Scanning electron microscope at the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh

Transmission electron microscope, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Piece of shell viewed with the scanning electron microscope

Microscopic algae that live in the oceans. They are single cells that are covered by crystals of calcium carbonate (chalk).