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Regina Markus

Europharma e IB/USP
Regina Markus

Full Professor at the Biosciences Institute of 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 PhD in Pharmacology from the same institution in 1974. Free Professor in Pharmacology from USP (1989). Since the beginning of her career, she has continued to work with Scientific Societies, having been President of SBFTE (Brazilian Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics) and member of the Boards of Directors of FESBE and SBPC as General Secretary and Treasurer. He served on CAPES and CNPq Advisory Committees, on the CNPq Deliberative Council and was Head of the Secretariat for Research and Development Policies and Programs at MCTI (2003) and the National Council for Ethics in Research on Laboratory Animals (CONCEA). She is currently president of the EMBRAPII Monitoring and Evaluation Committee. Since 2007, she has served as Vice-President of the Associação Amigos do Instituto Weizmann, Brazil, a reviewer for several international journals and is on the Editorial Board of the Journal Pineal Research, Frontiers in Cellular Endocrinololy and Brain Behavior and Immunity. She coordinated (Chair) the 3rd SCR FASEB on Melatonin Biology, Clinics and Therapeutics (2013, Niagara Falls, USA) and is part of the International Union for Pharmacology (IUPHAR) Committee for melatonin receptors. Line of Research: She works in the area of Chronopharmacology with an emphasis on the role of melatonin on the inflammatory response and cancer. She consolidated knowledge in the area by proposing the Immune-Pineal Axis, responsible for the alternation between melatonin production by the pineal or by immunocompetent cells. Currently, she is developing new molecular platforms of selective and mixed melatonin receptor ligands focusing on therapies for cancer, overweight and neurodegenerative diseases based on the concept of the Immune-Pineal Axis, proposed by the group led by Regina P Markus. The search for a theory that allows organizing 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 and degradation enzymes in order to estimate the capacity of a tissue synthesize melatonin. These data applied to different tumors could serve as a prognostic index of evolution. In collaboration with researchers from the Weizmann Research Institute in Israel, in 2018, we demonstrated that the bone marrow of mice is capable of synthesizing melatonin in a rhythmic manner, under the direct command of the sympathetic nervous system and coupled to an endogenous TNF rhythm. Reevaluating the paradigm shift in the daily rhythm of bone and blood formation is the corollary of this line of investigation. The extra-pineal production of melatonin by resident macrophages, including alveolar macrophages, has been shown to be essential for protection against pollution and also in inhibiting the expression of proteins that allow viruses, such as SARS-COV2. After 25 years of work, this line of research is now recognized in the literature. In 2018, the immune-pineal axis was considered an orchestrator of the defense response (PMID: 30917240). Furthermore, this name coined by us is now used by authors who prove the relevance of an organization between the pineal and extra-pineal production of melatonin, to provide an adequate defense response. Its deviations serve as a scenario for the development of pathologies based on silent inflammation.

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