Science and innovation for a sustainable future

The University of São Paulo (USP) and FAPESP are participating in the 9th edition of Viva Technology (VivaTech), Europe’s largest startup and technology event. They have a 100-square-meter stand to showcase innovations in agriculture, climate, energy, artificial intelligence, and health (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/54959).

The program at the stand also includes USP professors who, besides being available to investors, entrepreneurs, and visitors to the fair, are participating in roundtable discussions to present technologies developed by their centers of excellence.

One of the round tables was themed “Science and Innovation for a Sustainable Future: USP Advances in Climate, AI, Clean Energy, Health, and Technology,” and featured the following speakers: Julio Meneghini, Paulo Artaxo, Carlos Labate, Marcelo Zuffo, Fabio Cozman, and Vanderlei Bagnato.

Meneghini discussed some of the projects and innovations presented at VivaTech by the Research Center for Greenhouse Gas Innovation (RCGI), a research center based at the Engineering School (POLI-USP) and funded by Shell and FAPESP. The RCGI was responsible for organizing the institutional participation of USP and FAPESP in the Paris event, including stand design, technology curation, and activity programming.

“We brought some examples of innovations produced at the RCGI, such as startups involved in green methanol production, solar-powered hydrogen production, solid oxide fuel cells, and ethanol-powered electricity generation. We’re also presenting a system that uses virtual reality to produce a multisensory experience simulating the Amazon Rainforest with visual, auditory, and olfactory stimuli,” he said.

“The RCGI is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and it’s very satisfying to see the results of important projects developed during this period by the approximately 600 researchers who are part of the project. Our center was created with support from FAPESP under the Engineering Research Centers/Applied Research Centers Program, and our mission is to become a globally recognized center of excellence that contributes to a sustainable future and helps Brazil meet its climate goals established in the Paris Agreement,” said Meneghini.

The RCGI’s executive and scientific director emphasized that the focus is on producing practical solutions based on solid science. One of the programs mentioned was Greenhouse Gases, with projects aimed, for example, at reducing leaks of methane – one of the most potent greenhouse gases – in industrial processes.

“Another RCGI program is Nature-Based Solutions, through which we seek to develop new technologies applicable to agriculture and livestock, making these sectors more sustainable,” said Meneghini.

“At the RCGI, we also have a cross-cutting project that seeks to focus the center’s internationalization efforts, as we believe that Brazil can lead the next great challenge of this century: making progress happen in a sustainable way,” he said.

Paulo Artaxo presented a project aimed at building a greenhouse gas emissions database for the Amazon region, which is also being conducted at the RCGI. The platform is being built using big data techniques to generate information that will enable the monitoring of emissions, a more accurate understanding of their causes, and support for the formulation of public policies aimed at mitigating these gases.

“Initially focused on the Amazon, the project is now being expanded to all of South America. Among the main features of the platform are a harmonized database and a user-friendly interface. All of this provides a solid scientific basis for decision makers to act more safely and effectively,” said Artaxo.

Cerrado solution

Carlos Labate, coordinator of the Multi-user Proteomics, Metabolomics, and Lipidomics Laboratory at the Luiz de Queiroz School of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP), gave a presentation on macaúba as a promising crop for sustainable development. In partnership with Acelen Renováveis, ESALQ-USP researchers are developing a project to produce biofuels from macaúba, a plant native to the Cerrado (Brazilian savanna-like biome) that has not yet been domesticated.

“Macaúba stands out for its extremely high oil productivity – it produces seven to ten times more oil than soybeans – and it’s important to note that it isn’t a food crop, meaning it doesn’t compete with crops such as soybeans or corn. This eliminates one of the main criticisms of using agricultural land for biofuel production: we aren’t taking space away from food production,” said Labate.

The goal of the project is to produce sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. According to the professor, Brazil has a significant amount of land with agricultural potential, and macaúba is a sustainable way to utilize it. “Managing macaúba using degraded pastures won’t encourage deforestation or negatively impact land use,” he said.

The ESALQ-USP professor explained that they are studying three species of macaúba: Acrocomia aculeata, distributed mainly in the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais and in the southern region of the state of Mato Grosso; Acrocomia totai, present in the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul; and Acrocomia intumescens, found mainly in the Northeast region of Brazil. “This diversity represents multiple opportunities for regional development, with species adapted to different environments, from the coast to the interior of the country. We’ve already sequenced the genome of A. aculeata and are finalizing the sequencing of A. totai. This work is fundamental for the genetic improvement of the plant,” he said.

The researchers are building a germplasm bank using samples collected from different regions. These samples show genetic variability in characteristics such as fruit size and quantity, which are essential factors for developing more productive varieties.

A trillion computers

The goal of the project presented by Marcelo Zuffo, coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Center for Interactive Technologies at USP, is to develop a real-time perception of the Amazon Rainforest through a new type of artificial intelligence.

“Our main challenge is to build a persistent perception of the biodiversity of the rainforest – a perception that’s accurate, direct, continuous, and long-lasting. It’s important to remember that many trees in tropical forests live for centuries, while most electronic devices today don’t even last a few decades,” he said.

The project, called Farm AI, proposes developing autonomous devices equipped with carbon dioxide, temperature, infrared, and other sensors. These sensors must operate safely, efficiently, and autonomously in remote environments. The researchers are also using technologies such as blockchain and encryption to ensure the security, traceability, and integrity of the data collected.

“What’s our vision? A trillion computers. We work with the concept of dust computing. Imagine computational grains of sand scattered throughout the Amazon – a simple handful of this sand containing billions of grains, each capable of processing data, communicating, and collaborating with others,” said Zuffo.

The researcher commented that the next big technological wave may be in such devices, which are embedded everywhere and capable of interacting, collaborating, and replicating themselves. “Intelligent devices interacting organically, creating a distributed collective intelligence – for example, a collective organic intelligence of the forest – leading to an internet of trees,” he said.

“We already have working prototypes. The idea is to create a swarm of robust, very low-cost devices with environmental sensor applications. We’ve already conducted the first tests, with ten devices launched in the forest, and we plan to produce 2,000 units,” he said.

Zuffo explains that each device is coin-sized and contains a 2 x 3 millimeter chip with 300 million transistors. “It’s a complete computer capable of running AI and encryption, and can connect to more than 200 different sensors,” he said.

Preserving Indigenous languages

For decades, USP has been a national reference in artificial intelligence research, conducting studies in various fields and units, including medicine, engineering, computer science, and social sciences. To consolidate this work, the Center for Artificial Intelligence (C4AI) was created as a partnership between USP, FAPESP, and IBM. The center brings together about 90 professors from various fields, explained Fabio Cozman, the director of the center.

“At the C4AI, we investigate everything from AI algorithms to their practical applications in sectors such as health, law, public policy, agribusiness, and natural language processing, with an emphasis on the Portuguese language,” said Cozman, who highlighted two C4AI projects focused on sustainability, which was the theme of the session at VivaTech.

“In the first, the idea is to predict extreme events in the South Atlantic, particularly studying storm surges, which cause flooding due to tides and winds rather than rain. The project uses a machine learning approach based on physical models that integrates ocean data with environmental modeling, in collaboration with researchers in engineering and marine sciences,” he said.

“The second project focuses on preserving Brazilian indigenous languages to ensure their continuity among new generations. The challenge lies in developing translation tools for Brazil’s indigenous languages. The country has more than 200 languages besides Portuguese. The proposal is to create applications and tools that help young people learn and become familiar with their language and their ancestral language,” said Cozman.

Photonics against bacterial resistance

“At the University of São Paulo, we work with three fundamental principles: doing science with excellence; doing science with relevance – that is, solving problems, especially with social responsibility; and third, being international. We don’t produce knowledge just for ourselves, but for humanity. That’s what we’re proud of,” said Vanderlei Bagnato, coordinator of the Optics and Photonics Research Center (CePOF) at the São Carlos Institute of Physics (IFSC-USP).

“In São Carlos, we have about 120 people working. We started as a center funded by FAPESP, and today we’re also part of a federal government program, with projects co-funded by companies. We currently have around 90 projects with the private sector – 60 already completed and 30 in progress. Our team is multidisciplinary: physicists, doctors, pharmacists, mathematicians – we work with technology development and instrumentation, from quantum physics to healthcare,” he explained.

“We work in human, environmental, and animal health, facing three major challenges. The first is cancer treatment. Despite advances in knowledge, access to treatment is still very limited – even in rich countries, the costs are extremely high. The second challenge is chronic diseases such as Parkinson’s, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and arthritis, which affect millions of people and require new protocols and equipment to improve patients’ quality of life,” said Bagnato.

“The third major challenge is infections, especially given the bacterial resistance to antibiotics. We’re developing an innovative treatment for resistant pneumonia: we’ve created inhalable molecules that attach themselves to the lungs at the site of infection and are activated by infrared light. This generates free radicals that destroy the bacterial colony or make the bacteria sensitive to antibiotics again,” said the CePOF coordinator.

“We’re already in phase 3 of clinical trials for this treatment. In Texas, we’re developing animal models of pneumonia in sheep and dogs – species that naturally develop the disease. We hope to begin clinical trials in humans next year. This approach could be a game changer because 10 to 15 million people die from resistant pneumonia each year, not due to a lack of doctors, but due to a lack of effective drugs,” said Bagnato. He is partnering with Texas A&M University to establish a CePOF-style center in the United States with funding from the State of Texas.

FAPESP’s participation in VivaTech is part of the FAPESP Week France program. For more information, visit: fapesp.br/week/2025/france. 

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