Guilhian Leipnitz
PhD in Biochemistry (UFRGS)
Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at UFRGS. He holds a degree in Pharmacy and a Master's and PhD in Biological Sciences: Biochemistry from UFRGS. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the same field at UFRGS and in the area of genetics at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, USA. He has been a permanent advisor for the PPG Neurosciences program since 2020, where he teaches the course "Mitochondria in the Central Nervous System: Much More Than ATP Production." He has over 20 years of experience in the field of inherited metabolic diseases. His research focuses on investigating the pathophysiology of brain abnormalities observed in hereditary diseases. More specifically, he evaluates redox and energy homeostasis, mitochondrial quality control, organelle interactions, glutamatergic neurotransmission, and the signaling pathways involved. To this end, he uses both in vitro and ex vivo rodent models. In vitro models involve exposing brain preparations and cell cultures derived from rodent tissues to metabolites accumulated in the diseases. Ex vivo models are performed by administering accumulated metabolites to animals. Over the past 8 years, he has also used fibroblasts from patients with different mutations and knockout animal models.