Rafael Radi
Universidad de la Republica
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Primary Section: 21, Biochemistry Secondary Section: 42, Medical Physiology and Metabolism Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2015)
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Biosketch
Rafael Radi, MD, PhD (Universidad de la República, Uruguay, 1988 and 1991) is a biochemist and biomedical scientist born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1963. Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. Academic career as tenured faculty at the Department of Biochemistry, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de la República, currently holds the position of Full Professor and Chairman and Director of the Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas (CEINBIO). Honorary Professor at the Universities of Buenos Aires, Alabama at Birmingham, Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt. Awarded the national prizes in research in Biology (1996), Basic Sciences (1999) and Science and Technology (2007). International honors include Senior Fulbright Foreign Scholar, Guggenheim Fellow, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Alumni, Alexander Von Humboldt Award, Discovery Award of the Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine and Luis Federico Leloir Award to International Scientific Cooperation. Member of The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), the Argentinean National Academy of Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the Latin American Academy of Sciences, Founder Member and First Secretary of the Uruguayan National Academy of Sciences, Honorary Member of the Uruguayan National Academy of Medicine and Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. Member of the Council of Scientific Advisors of the International Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB). Former President of the Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine. Current President of the Society for Free Radical Research International.
Research Interests
Radi´s research activities have focused on the biochemistry, cell biology, relevance to disease mechanisms and therapeutics of free radicals, oxidants and antioxidant systems. In particular, Radi has contributed to clarify the mechanisms of nitric oxide-dependent toxicity through its interaction with superoxide and the formation of peroxynitrite in vitro and in vivo. He has extensively characterized the biological chemistry of peroxynitrite, including the discovery of free radical-dependent and independent reaction pathways, its impact in mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis via oxidation and nitration reactions and its role in pathology. He has contributed to the concept that an oxidizing environment can “shift” the physiological actions of nitric oxide towards pathophysiology. Radi’s work facilitated the development, testing and chemical characterization of antioxidants that serve as peroxynitrite decomposition catalysts as well as mitochondrial-targeted redox-based drugs for application in cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and inflammatory conditions. Additionally, Radi has shown that peroxynitrite is a cytotoxic effector in cellular immune responses against intracellular pathogens such as the causative agent of Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, and how microbial antioxidant systems constitute virulence factors. He has authored over 210 peer-review papers and 40 reviews, with an h-index = 72 (ISI, Feb 2016) and over 22,000 citations.
