Professor Antonio Carlos Boschiero, from the Institute of Biology (IB), received the title of Professor Emeritus from Unicamp on the 30th, in a ceremony presided over by the rector José Tadeu Jorge and attended by family, teachers, students, staff and friends in the room. University Council. The title is awarded to professors who have distinguished themselves in the exercise of academic activity for their relevant services to science and the institution. Born in Descalvado (SP) on January 27, 1943, Antonio Carlos Boschiero is the 11th and penultimate child of a family of workers, having survived as a metalworker from 14 to 21 years of age until graduating in natural history and beginning a dense academic trajectory. 

“The feeling for the title is indescribable because I'm a bit of a country bumpkin and this kind of thing touches us a lot – including the presence of my family, people who come from a poor working-class family, like the vast majority of Brazilians. Reaching a university, becoming a full professor and achieving this recognition is very good, rewarding and exciting”, said the honoree, showing the same humility when talking about his career. “I always say that a scientist is a bricklayer, a profession like any other: it is necessary to build, from the ground up, a strong foundation so that the house is habitable and to make improvements. My internships abroad were also important, the family that supported me a lot and the great students and collaborators I always had; Without them, I wouldn’t get here.” 

Boschiero prepared a three-page speech for the ceremony, but fearing that emotion would prevent him from delivering it in full, he preferred to go directly to thanking him for the title of Professor Emeritus. “My greatest gratitude goes to Unicamp, I want to make it clear that it was an honor, a privilege to have been and continue to be a teacher at this house. I always ask myself if, during all these years, I dedicated myself with the necessary intensity to give back to this institution everything it gave me,” he declared, without forgetting fellow IB professors and staff, postgraduate students and research agencies. promotion. “And finally, to my family: my wife Carmen and my children Camila and Fernando, with special mention to Felipe, who, due to a major illness that consumed him throughout his life, passed away a year and a half ago, aged just 37. years old." 

Rector Tadeu Jorge noted that these moments of tribute to those who built Unicamp are of historical relevance to the internal culture. “They are of great value and value because the University pays homage to examples that deserve to be highlighted and, above all, followed. Professor Boschiero's contribution to Unicamp, to the advancement of knowledge, is here revered as an example for new generations. I have been at the University for over 40 years and, even as a student or professor at the beginning of my career, even in a distant area, I heard names considered as references in terms of dedication and initiative that made Unicamp gain the quality it has today. And one of those names was yours.” 

Invited to greet the honoree, Professor Mario Saad, director of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, recalled that he was in his first year of postgraduate studies when he had a lecture that would mark his life. “Professor Boschiero presented a new concept that insulin secretion is stimulated by the metabolization of glucose in the islet, and not by a glucose receptor, as was previously taught in physiology departments – it was the first paradigm shift I experienced. I thank him for teaching me not only about insulin secretion, but mainly for showing me and a generation at Unicamp, through his example, coherence, ethics and humility; personal honesty and integrity shine throughout his career, nothing compromises his love for scientific and human truth.”

The trajectory

Antonio Carlos Boschiero has a degree in natural history from Unesp in Rio Claro (1968) and a doctorate in biological sciences from Unicamp (1973). He joined the IB Department of Structural and Functional Biology in 1970, where he still serves as a contributing professor after retirement. He completed a postdoctoral degree at the University of Brussels in 1978 and, returning to Unicamp, set up his research laboratory, creating a group focused on studying the pathophysiology of insulin-producing and secreting cells; He currently heads an endocrine pancreas and metabolism group in the same department where more than 40 researchers who work in different institutions across Brazil trained. 

Several of Boschiero's initial studies, on ionic permeabilities in insulin-secreting cells, allowed him to elaborate his thesis of free teaching, defended and approved in 1979. He is the author of more than 200 scientific works in indexed and widely distributed international journals; He supervised countless scientific initiation students, 22 masters, 15 doctors and supervised 10 post-doctors. He was awarded the Zeferino Vaz Award twice, and the State Governor's Award for his collaboration in the Xylella fastidiosa Genome Project. He was elected full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2010 and of the São Paulo Academy in 2012. He has been a 1A researcher at CNPq since 1993.