Walter Filgueira da Azevedo Junior

"Let the light of science end the darkness of denialism."- see: https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/4

Dr. Walter F. de Azevedo, Jr. earned a BSc in Physics (1990), an MSc in Applied Physics (1992), and a DSc in Applied Physics (1997) from the University of São Paulo (Brazil). Dr. Azevedo worked under the supervision of Prof. Yvonne Primerano Mascarenhas (University of São Paulo) and Prof. Sung-Hou Kim (University of California, Berkeley) on a split Doctoral program with a fellowship from the Brazilian Research Council (CNPq). During the first two years of his stay at Berkeley, he was under a CNPq fellowship (1993-95). Due to his performance during these first years, Prof. S.-H. Kim hired him as Visiting Researcher for the Department of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley (1995-96). The work developed at Berkeley resulted in his thesis about the structure of Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 2 in complex with inhibitors (PDB code: 2A4L) (https://www.rcsb.org/structure/2A4L) (de Azevedo et al., 1996)(https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.93.7.2735); (de Azevedo et al., 1997)(https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1432-1033.1997.0518a.x). Dr. Azevedo is the first author of both papers, and these publications gathered more than 1,000 citations on the Web of Science (https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/581112). During 1997-98 he had a postdoc position at São Paulo State University (Unesp) with a Fapesp fellowship (https://bv.fapesp.br/pt/bolsas/75932/determinacao-de-estruturas-de-proteinas-por-tecnicas-de-difracao-de-raios-x/). He holds a habilitation degree in Physics (livre-docência) from the São Paulo State University (Unesp)(2004).

In 1998, Dr. Azevedo participated in a research project with NASA that sent proteins to crystallize in a microgravity environment onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-95). This research had coverage of Brazilian TV networks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9IFiQNY8mE). In 2019, he published a book entitled "Docking Screens for Drug Discovery.". This book sold 36,000 copies (June 2023) with over 2 million dollars in sales (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4939-9752-7). In 2020, the Journal Plos Biology ranked Dr. Azevedo among the most influential researchers in the world (https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918).

Dr. Azevedo works as an editor of several journals. Among them, he is the frontiers section editor (Bioinformatics/Biophysics) for the Current Drug Targets (https://benthamscience.com/journals/current-drug-targets/editorial-board/#top), section editor (Bioinformatics in Drug Design and Discovery) for the Current Medicinal Chemistry (https://benthamscience.com/journals/current-medicinal-chemistry/editorial-board/#top), review editor for Frontiers in Chemistry (https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/1278875/overview), associate editor for Exploration of Drug Science, member of the editorial board of Molecular Diversity (https://www.springer.com/journal/11030/editors), and editor of Docking Screens for Drug Discovery (Methods of Molecular Biology)-Springer Nature. He is a reviewer for over 60 high-impact journals, including Nature Communications and Briefings in Bioinformatics. His research interests are interdisciplinary, with three emphases: machine learning, complex systems, and computational systems biology. He developed the concept of Scoring Function Space (https://doi.org/10.2174/0929867324666170623092503) and created several software to explore this hypothesis (https://azevedolab.net/projects.php). He has over 200 publications about protein structures, computer models of complex systems, and simulations of protein systems. These publications have over 7000 citations on the Web of Science (h-index: 47, m-quotient: 1.7), +7000 citations in Scopus (h-index: 48), and +9000 citations on Google Scholar (h-index: 52).Dr. Azevedo is professor at the Federal University of Alfenas.

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graduation at fisica from Universidade de São Paulo (1990), master's at Physics from Universidade de São Paulo (1992) and doctorate at Physics from Universidade de São Paulo (1997). Has experience in Biochemistry, acting on the following subjects: análise estrutural, bioinformática, biocristalografia, drug design and mycobacterium tuberculosis.