Lectures, tutorials and invited talks

Since 2007, I have organized and presented several short courses and tutorials on bioinformatics methods and their applications to immunology, vaccinology and cancer immunotherapy. I have also presented a number of invited talks and lectures in topics related to my research.

Lectures

Structural bioinformatics on cancer immunotherapy.

Lecture in the class “Special Projects II - Structural Bioinformatics”, Prof. Geancarlo Zanatta. Graduate Program in Biochemistry, Federal University of Ceará UFC. Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Year: 2020. Language: Portuguese.

Motion Planning for Large Molecular Complexes.

Lecture in the class “Algorithmic Robotics” (COMP 450), Prof. Lydia Kavraki. Graduate Program in Computer Science, Rice University. Houston, TX, US. Year: 2015. Language: English.

Principal Component Analysis, K-means, and Clustering.

Lecture in the class “Biomedical Informatics” (COMP 573), Prof. Lydia Kavraki. Graduate Program in Computer Science, Rice University. Houston, TX, US. Year: 2015. Language: English.

The role of the Biomedicine’s professional on academia (2nd Ed.).

Lecture in the class “Cycle of lectures on the professional paths on biomedicine” (BIM 99002), Prof. Denise M. Zancan. Bachelor’s course in Biomedicine, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2014. Language: Portuguese.

The role of the Biomedicine’s professional on academia.

Lecture in the class “Cycle of lectures on the professional paths on biomedicine” (BIM 99002), Prof. Denise M. Zancan. Bachelor’s course in Biomedicine, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2013. Language: Portuguese.

Gene Therapy.

Lecture in the class “Genetics – Biotechnology” (BIO 07035), Prof. Lavinia Schuler-Faccini. Bachelor’s course in Biotechnology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2012. Language: Portuguese.

Introduction to Proteomics and Structural Bioinformatics.

Lecture in the class “Genetics – Biotechnology” (BIO 07035), Prof. Lavinia Schuler-Faccini. Bachelor’s course in Biotechnology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2012. Language: Portuguese.

Proteomics and Bioinformatics.

Experimental lecture in the class “Methods for teaching genetics to undergraduate students” (GEP 101), Prof. Claiton M. Ferreira. Graduate Program in Genetics and Molecular Biology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2012. Language: Portuguese.

Bioinformatics: Origin and Applications.

Invited lecture at the class on “Introduction to Science and Technology”, Computer Science course, Universidade Federal do Pampa (UNIPAMPA). Alegrete, RS, Brazil. Year: 2011. Language: Portuguese. Original title: Bioinformática: Origem e Aplicações.

Bioinformatics: Origin and Applications.

Invited lecture at the class on Clinical Genetics, Medicine course, Lutheran University of Brazil (ULBRA). Canoas, RS, Brazil. Year: 2008. Language: Portuguese. Original title: Bioinformática: Origem e Aplicações.

Tutorials/workshops

Current methods and open challenges for structural modeling in cancer immunotherapy (2nd Ed.).

Tutorial (4 h) held as part of the Second International Symposium on Mathematical and Computational Oncology (ISMCO’20). Virtual. Year: 2020. This tutorial was organized and executed in collaboration with Maurício Rigo and Sarah Hall-Swan.

Current methods and open challenges for structural modeling in cancer immunotherapy.

Tutorial (4 h) held as part of the First International Symposium on Mathematical and Computational Oncology (ISMCO’19). Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA. Year: 2019. This tutorial was organized and executed in collaboration with Maurício Rigo and Jayvee Abella.

Bioinformatics (2nd Ed.).

Short course (4 h) held at the Methodist University Center (IPA). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2011. This course was organized and executed in collaboration with Maurício Rigo. Language: Portuguese. Original title: Bioinformática.

Bioinformatics.

Short course (4 h) held at the Methodist University Center (IPA). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2010. This course was organized and executed in collaboration with Maurício Rigo. Language: Portuguese. Original title: Bioinformática.

Bionformatics tools applied to vaccine development (2nd Ed.).

Short course (20 h) held at the Informatics Institute (INF) of the Federal university of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2009. This course was organized and executed with the collaboration of Maurício Rigo, Dr. Marialva Sinigaglia, Dr. Gustavo F. Vieira and Dr. José Artur B. Chies. Language: Portuguese. Original title: Ferramentas de Bioinformática Aplicadas ao Desenvolvimento de Vacinas (Segunda Edição)

Bionformatics tools applied to vaccine development.

Short course (12 h) held at the Informatics Institute (INF) of the Federal university of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2008. This course was organized and executed with the collaboration of of Maurício Rigo, Dr. Gustavo F. Vieira and Dr. José Artur B. Chies. Language: Portuguese. Original title: Ferramentas de Bioinformática no Desenvolvimento de Vacinas.

The role of bioinformatics on the development of new vaccination strategies.

Short course (12 h) held at the Institute for Basic Health Sciences (ICBS) of the Federal university of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2008. This course was organized and executed with the collaboration of Maurício Rigo, Dr. Gustavo F. Vieira and Dr. José Artur B. Chies. Language: Portuguese. Original title: O papel da bioinformática no desenvolvimento de novas estratégias vacinais.

Bionformatics tools applied to immunology.

Short course (20 h) held at the Postgraduate Program in Genetics and Molecular Biology (PPGBM) of the Federal university of Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Year: 2007. This course was organized and executed with the collaboration of Dr. Gustavo F. Vieira and Dr. José Artur B. Chies. Language: Portuguese. Original title: Ferramentas de Bioinformática Aplicadas a Imunologia.

Video tutorials

As part of the outreach initiatives of the Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) program of the National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI), I have published a two-parts introductory tutorial on the use of our meta-docking incremental approach, called DINC.

Invited talks

Advancing immunotherapy through structure-based computational analyses.

Invited talk at the Center for Nuclear Receptor and Cell Signaling (CNRSC) Annual Symposium. Houston/ZOOM, TX. January 2021.

Predicting off-target toxicity in cancer immunotherapy.

Invited talk at the 30th Annual Keck Research Conference (ARC2020), as the fellow selected to represent the CCBTP program. Houston/ZOOM, TX. October 2020.

Bioinformatics on the prediction of vaccinal targets.

Invited talk for the Centro de Pesquisa Experimental do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (CPE/HCPA). Proto Alegre/ZOOM, RS, Brazil. September 2020. Language: Portuguese. Title in Portuguese: Bioinformática na predição de alvos vacinais. Palestra apresentada como parte dos Seminários Científicos do CPE.

Overcoming the computational challenges of protein structural analyses in cancer immunotherapy

Invited talk at the Smalley-Curl Institute (Summer Research Colloquium), held by the Applied Physics Graduate Program of Rice University. Houston/ZOOM, TX. August 2020.

Searching for vaccinal targets: Considerations on my trajectory doing basic research.

Invited talk for the 30th Seminar Series of PUB Houston. Houston/ZOOM, TX. August 2020. Language: Portuguese. Title in Portuguese: Buscando alvos para novas vacinas: considerações sobre a minha trajetória na pesquisa básica.

Designing vaccines: Considerations on basic science and the pandemic.

Invited talk for the Universidade Federal do Pampa (UNIPAMPA). Alegrete/ZOOM, RS, Brazil. June 2020. Language: Portuguese. Title in Portuguese: Planejando vacinas: Considerações sobre a pesquisa básica e a pandemia. Palestra apresentada via Projeto de Extensão “Saúde e bem-estar em tempos de pandemia”, disponível aqui.

Round Table: The challenges of COVID-19.

Invited participation on a round table to discuss the latest updates and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, organized by PUB Houston. Houston/ZOOM, TX. April 2020. Language: Portuguese. Title in Portuguese: Os desafios perante a COVID-19.

Enabling structure-based data-driven selection of targets for cancer immunotherapy.

Invited talk at the Seventeenth Annual Rocky Mountain Bioinformatics Conference (Rocky19), a meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). Aspen/Snowmass, CO. December 2019.

Large-scale modeling of class I peptide-HLA complexes using APE-Gen

Invited talk at the First International Symposium on Mathematical and Computational Oncology (ISMCO 2019). Lake Tahoe, NV. October 2019.

Applications of structural bioinformatics to cancer immunotherapy.

Invited talk at the XXII Semana Acadêmica da Biologia, Universidade de Passo Fundo (UPF). Passo Fundo, Brazil. September 2019. Title in Portuguese: Aplicações da bioinformática estrutural à imunoterapia contra o câncer.

Conformational sampling of large ligands made possible by a parallelized incremental meta-docking approach.

Talk at the annual meeting of the Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR). Salt Lake City, UT. May 2019.

Predicting binding modes of large peptides to MHC-I receptors.

Invited talk at the group meeting of Professor Yousif Shamoo, Department of BioSciences, Rice University). Houston, TX. April 2018.

Structure-based selection of tumor-antigens for T-cell based immunotherapy.

Talk at the annual meeting of the Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR). Bathesda, MD. May 2018.

Towards personalized structural analysis of peptide-HLA complexes for T-cell-based immunotherapy.

Invited talk at the 2nd Edition of the Genomic Medicine Conference (GeneMed-2018). Houston, TX. February 2018.

General structural prediction of peptide-HLA complexes.

Talk at the annual meeting of the Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR). Santa Cruz, CA. May 2017.

Structural bioinformatics applied to cancer.

Invited talk at the Seminar Series of the association of Brazilian researchers and academics (PUB Houston). Houston, TX. 2016

Customized docking method to perform binding mode prediction of large ligands to HLA molecules.

Invited talk at the meeting of the Postdoctoral Fellows of The Computational Cancer Biology Training Program (CCBTP). Houston, TX. 2015.

“Peptide:MHC” structural similarity as a probability for cross-reactive T cell responses.

Invited talk at the group meeting of Professor John Lambris, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (Med.UPenn), Philadelphia. 2014.

Advances in Bioinformatics.

Invited talk at the Federal Institute for Education, Science and Technology Sul-Rio-Grandense (IFSul). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. 2014. Language: Portuguese. Event name: Diálogos sobre Pesquisa. Talk title: Avanços da Bioinformática.

Application of bioinformatics to vaccinology.

Invited talk at the course on “Informatics applied to Biology and Drug Design”, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. 2011. Language: Portuguese. Event name: Curso de Informática Aplicada à Biologia e Planejamento de Fármacos. Talk title: Aplicação da bioinformática à vacinologia.

Biomedicine and Biotecnology: Paths to study different aspects of Biology.

Invited talk at Escola Estadual de Ensino Médio Demétrio Ribeiro. Alegrete, RS, Brazil. 2011. Language: Portuguese. Talk title: Biomedicina e Biotecnologia: Caminhos para se estudar diferentes aspectos da Biologia.

Bioinformatics for vaccine development.

Invited talk at the Lutheran University of Brazil (ULBRA). Canoas, RS, Brazil. 2008. Language: Portuguese. Event name: VI Semana Acadêmica da Biomedicina da ULBRA. Talk title: Bioinformática no desenvolvimento de vacinas.