The Office of International Affairs and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) have jointly awarded $100,000 to fund five projects that will support collaboration between researchers at Ohio State and the State of São Paulo, Brazil over the next two years.
Ohio State’s history of 50+ years of partnership and strategic engagement with Brazil is rooted in collaborative research and educational cooperation, beginning in the area of agriculture with USP-ESALQ in 1964. Collaborations and partnerships have since grown to include diverse areas of study, ranging from medicine to literature, and institutions throughout Brazil. Ohio State has partnered in the past with FAPESP and created a $1.4 million research fund to foster collaborative projects between researchers at Ohio State and institutions in the state of São Paulo.
The most recent Office of International Affairs-FAPESP collaboration called for proposals in any discipline but especially in areas related to: technology and society: ethics, governance, law; data science and artificial intelligence; agriculture and the environment; new forms and sources of energy; new directions in the humanities; cancer and immunology.
"It is our hope and our strategic vision to support innovative scholarship that encourages collaborations between Ohio State researchers and their international partners," said Kaya Şahin, vice provost for global strategies and international affairs. "By forging partnerships across borders, we not only expand our collective knowledge but also address global challenges with diverse perspectives and innovative solutions. Working together with our international colleagues strengthens our research, inspires creativity and amplifies the impact of our discoveries for the benefit of everyone."
Awardees include:
- Marcos J. de Lima and Wing Chang, Department of Internal Medicine at Ohio State and Lucila Nassif Kerbauy, hematology and cell therapy, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, State of São Paulo. Project title: Molecular Target Characterization of FCRL5 in Hematologic Malignancies: Translational Potential for Cell-Based Therapies. Project overview: Treatments that use special antibodies and engineered immune cells have greatly improved care for certain blood cancers, but some patients still see their cancer return. To help prevent relapses, it’s important to find new targets that these treatments can attack. This project will look at a protein called FcRL5 found on cancer cells, to see if it could be a promising new target for future therapies.
- Osler Ortez, Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at Ohio State and Giovana Ghisleni Ribas, crop science, ESALQ/USP, State of São Paulo. Project title: Bridging Yield Gaps in Corn-Soybean Cropping Systems: A Joint Initiative Between ESALQ/USP and CFAES/The Ohio State University. Project overview: This collaborative project will investigate yield-limiting factors in corn-soybean cropping systems. By leveraging on-farm crop rotation data from Mato Grosso and long-term datasets from Ohio, researchers aim to identify yield potential (and gaps), yield drivers, and cropping efficiency to promote sustainable intensification through joint research, exchange missions, and training activities. This is the first comparative study to systematically analyze yield potential (and gaps) in corn-soybean-based cropping systems across contrasting tropical and temperate agroecosystems using standardized methods, which would inform both hemispheres on best management practices for crop rotations and crop-resilient intensification.
- Lorrayne Miralha, Department of Food, Agriculture and Biological Engineering at Ohio State and Silvio Frosini de Barros Ferraz, forest hydrology and forest management, ESALQ/USP, State of São Paulo. Project title: Hydrologic and Ecosystem Function Responses to Riparian Restoration in the Atlantic Forest Biome: Linking Stream Temperature and Isotopic Signatures. Project overview: This project builds on earlier work between Ohio State and Brazil studying how water moves through the land and soil where a forest meets water sources such as rivers, lakes and streams. Researchers will combine new ways to measure ecosystem health, track how water moves using special markers, and use detailed sensors to see how eucalyptus trees take up water and how this affects how much water is available. The outcomes of the study will help share useful information and guide how fast-growing forests are managed in Brazil.
- Jimmy He, Department of Mathematics at Ohio State and Guilherme Lima Ferreira da Silva, mathematics, Institute of Computational Mathematical Sciences, USP, São Paulo. Project title: Riemann-Hilbert methods and the Six-Vertex Model. Project overview: This project aims to develop new mathematical methods to study random growth phenomenon (ex. how snow piles up, how information spreads across large network, how bacteria grows on a Petri dish). The complementary skills of the two researchers will provide new perspectives on previously intractable problems.
- Antonio J. Ramirez, Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State and Julian Arnaldo Avila Diaz, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, UNESP, São Paulo. Project title: AI-Driven Digital Twin Framework for Multipass Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing and Welding with High-Fidelity Process Monitoring. Project overview: This project aims to develop artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms for wire-arc direct energy deposition (DED) and multipass welding, integrating high-speed imaging, welding-camera monitoring, and digital twins. Through collaboration between UNESP and Ohio State, the goal is to deliver predictive models for detecting defects, optimizing processes and ensuring quality in industrial-relevant manufacturing applications.