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Dr. Mateus Webba da Silva

Reader in Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of Ulster
Cromore Road
 

Brief Biography:


Mateus Webba da Silva was born in Angola, educated in various institutions in Vienna, Rome, Lisbon, and England where he did his PhD studies at the University of Exeter. In his PhD studies he studied dynamic phenomena in organometallic complexes utilizing solution NMR spectroscopic methods. He went on to perform NMR solution structural studies on paramagnetic proteins at University of California at Davis. This was followed by structural studies on nucleic acids in the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and Duke Cancer Center at Duke University, North Carolina. In his research carreer he developed a variety of interests including: synthesis of coordination compounds and organometallic complexes as drugs, mechanisms of DNA repair, pro-drug activation by P450s, biomolecule ligand interactions, and non-linear optical properties of materials.

 

Academic positions:


09.2011–Pres: Reader, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, U.K.

2005 – 2011: Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, U.K.

2001 – 2005: Senior Research Associate, Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.

1999 – 2001: Research Associate, Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics Program, Memorial  Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA.

1997 – 1999: Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Chemistry, University of California at Davis, USA.

1996 – 1997: Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

 

Research interests:


Research in our laboratory involves nucleic acids structural studies with themes encompassing dimensions from the atomic to the nanosize scale. Current efforts focus on developing understanding and making use of their programmable self-assembly. Applications include unravelling mechanistic aspects of self-assembly of four-stranded DNA regions contributing to regulation of gene expression, and the development of entities with electronic, catalytic, medicinal, or simply structural properties. 

 

What I think of the idea behind WebmedCentral:


I think that if it really works it shuold bring us closer to the Facebook era with an incredible aim for turnaround (48 hrs), transparency & discussion (post-publication review). Given time, it might just become the standard for scientific interactions among specific communities. I have reservations to the application of these aims to those areas covered by muldisciplinary journals like PNAS.