Renato Helios Migliorini (June 26, 1926 in

Jaú Jaú is a municipality in the center of the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, in Brazil. The population is 151,881 (2020 est.) in an area of . The elevation is . The city takes its name from the native fish species ''Gilded catfish, jau''. ...

– January 16, 2008 in

Ribeirão Preto Ribeirão Preto (Portuguese pronunciation: �ibejˈɾɐ̃w ˈpɾetu is a municipality and a metropolitan area located in the northeastern region of São Paulo state, Brazil. Ribeirão Preto is the eighth-largest municipality in the State wi ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

) was a Brazilian

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, biomedical

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...

and

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

at the Medical School of Ribeirão Preto of the

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

. Migliorini graduated from the

Faculty of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...

of the University of São Paulo in 1949. He obtained a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

with his

animal research Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...

work on the role of

estrogen Estrogen or oestrogen is a category of sex hormone responsible for the development and regulation of the female reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics. There are three major endogenous estrogens that have estrogenic hormonal acti ...

s in

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...

. In 1953, he was hired as full-time instructor in the recently founded Department of Physiology of the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, where he worked until very shortly before his death at 82 years of age. He did his postdoctoral studies at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

on a scholarship from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

from 1959 to 1960.

Academic work

As a researcher, Dr. Migliorini had a strong focus on the physiology of the

endocrine system The endocrine system is a messenger system comprising feedback loops of the hormones released by internal glands of an organism directly into the circulatory system, regulating distant target organs. In vertebrates, the hypothalamus is the neu ...

and biochemical physiology,Quintão, E.C.R. In Memory. Professor Renato Helios Migliorini, pioneiro na investigação em ácidos graxos. ''Arq Bras Endocrinol Metab'' vol.52 no.3 São Paulo April 2008
DOI
/ref> and within this framework established a strong and active laboratory, which explored many areas, such as neural regulation of

fatty acids In chemistry, particularly in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, f ...

and

glucose Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using ...

, the effects of

fasting Fasting is the abstention from eating and sometimes drinking. From a purely physiological context, "fasting" may refer to the metabolic status of a person who has not eaten overnight (see " Breakfast"), or to the metabolic state achieved after ...

and

feeding Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, herbi ...

metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...

of brown

adipose tissue Adipose tissue, body fat, or simply fat is a loose connective tissue composed mostly of adipocytes. In addition to adipocytes, adipose tissue contains the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) of cells including preadipocytes, fibroblasts, vascular e ...

and

liver The liver is a major Organ (anatomy), organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the Protein biosynthesis, synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for ...

functions, the

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

metabolism in

skeletal muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...

, the interactions of

diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

ary protein and glucose in

glycolysis Glycolysis is the metabolic pathway that converts glucose () into pyruvate (). The free energy released in this process is used to form the high-energy molecules adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH ...

in adipose tissue, exposure to

cold Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...

and

drug A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...

s, as well as the role and function of

gluconeogenesis Gluconeogenesis (GNG) is a metabolic pathway that results in the generation of glucose from certain non-carbohydrate carbon substrates. It is a ubiquitous process, present in plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms. In vertebrat ...

in strictly

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

animals, such as

vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...

s. He published more than a hundred papers in noted international

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

s, particularly in the

American Journal of Physiology The ''American Journal of Physiology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal on physiology published by the American Physiological Society. Vols. for 1898–1941 and 1948-56 include the Society's proceedings, including abstracts of papers presente ...

. He was one of the most cited Brazilian biomedical researchers. He was nominated a Commander of the

Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit The National Order of Scientific Merit ( pt, Ordem Nacional do Mérito Científico) is an honor bestowed upon Brazilian and foreign personalities recognized for their scientific and technical contributions to the cause and development of science in ...

and a member of the

Brazilian Academy of Sciences The Brazilian Academy of Sciences ( pt, italic=yes, Academia Brasileira de Ciências or ''ABC'') is the national academy of Brazil. It is headquartered in the city of Rio de Janeiro and was founded on May 3, 1916. Publications It publishes a lar ...

, among other distinctions and awards. Among his many administrative duties in the

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, Migliorini was the deputy director of the Medical School and

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP) of the University of São Paulo.

Personal life

Dr. Migliorini had, in his lifetime, many collaborators and graduate students, such as Isis do Carmo Kettelhut, José Antunes Rodrigues, José Ernesto dos Santos, Itamar Vugman, Cecil Linder, George Gross, Ingrid Dick de Paula, Vera Lúcia Teixeira, Cesar Timo-Iaria, André Ricciardi Cruz, Cássio Botura and

Miguel Rolando Covian Miguel Rolando Covian (September 7, 1913 – February 5, 1992), was an Argentine-Brazilian physiologist, medical educator and writer. Biography Early life and education Covian was born in Rufino, Santa Fe Province, Argentina, on September 7, 1 ...

, among many others. In his personal life, Renato Migliorini was married since 1953 with Emilia Blat Migliorini. He left four children, Renato Blat Migliorini, Maria Cecília Blat Migliorini, Vera Lúcia Blat Migliorini and Valéria Blat Migliorini; and five grandchildren; Ramon Migliorini, Marilia Migliorini de Oliveira Lima, Matheus Migliorini de Oliveira Lima, Laura Migliorini Muniz and Bruna Migliorini Muniz.

References

Brazilian people of Italian descent Brazilian scientists Members of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences 2008 deaths Academic staff of the University of São Paulo 1926 births People from Jaú {{Brazil-med-bio-stub