Obituary Roberto FrussaFilho 1960–2013

Authors: Laís F Berro

Publish Date: 2014/03/18

Volume: 231, Issue: 9, Pages: 1863-1864

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Abstract

Dr Roberto FrussaFilho a great neuroscientist and even greater person died on 20 September 2013 The untimely passing of Roberto at 53 years of age was a substantial loss to family friends colleagues and students as well as the entire field of psychopharmacology Roberto was born in São Paulo Brazil on 30 June 1960 and received both his bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and his masters and doctoral degrees from the University of São Paulo under the guidance of Dr João PalermoNeto his first and everlasting mentorEven before achieving his doctoral degree Roberto joined the Pharmacology Division of Marília Medical School in 1986 as a professor where his efforts and love for science culminated in the first five international publications in the history of that university Later impelled by the distance from family and friends and by the aspiration for better research conditions Roberto continued to distinguish himself when in 1989 he was chosen to join the Pharmacology Division of the Federal University of São Paulo where he exerted his academic functions with pleasure and led one of the major research groups of the university until his last day When referred to as the newest professor of the Federal University of São Paulo Roberto commented “This ensures my opportunity to make science for the rest of my life For the rest of my life or at least until my mandatory retirement I will be able to dedicate myself to the most ludic of the activities the delightful serious game of questioning Nature and receiving its answers—a game to be shared with enthusiastic young people and dear colleagues” And so it wasFor years Roberto led a strong department focused on pharmacology research and graduate training while maintaining a highly productive individual research program In his joyful exercise of science consonant with his longstanding commitment to the training and welfare of promising young neuroscientists Roberto was responsible for training 53 masters and 24 doctors and authored more than 140 publications in several major journals in the field of psychopharmacology Even during his 2 years of fighting against cancer Roberto kept working and mentoring so much so that 2013 became the most productive year of his entire life He was a prolific researcher with broad vision and remarkable creative ability which is attested to by his creation of a new simple ethically feasible internationally accepted animal model that simultaneously evaluates learning memory anxiety and motor function the plusmaze discriminative avoidance task This new animal model to study memory–anxiety interactions was the subject of an extensive line of research throughout Roberto’s scientific career which was always supported by psychopharmacology through the publication of several articles Kameda et al 2007 Patti et al 2006 Silva et al 1997 2002 Zanin et al 2013In addition to his contributions to the field of memory Roberto’s major contribution to the scientific field was related to the pharmacology of dopaminergic neurotransmission and its behavioral consequences always in the light of his personal statement that “the body is only useful to take the brain for rides” His work was among the first to contrapose the wellknown physiopathologic hypothesis of dopaminergic supersensitivity for the development of oral dyskinesia induced by neuroleptic drugs proposing instead an oxidative stress hypothesis in a chapter in an internationally published book FrussaFilho and PalermoNeto 2001 Roberto also showed the selective action of atypical neuroleptic drugs in the development of drug abuse in animal models of addiction Carvalho et al 2009 Fukushiro et al 2007 2008 FrussaFilho et al 1997 Marinho et al 2013 Building upon this line of research he then studied the interactions between memory dopaminergic neurotransmission and sleep culminating in the publication of a study in the journal Sleep which has the highest scientific impact in the field Patti et al 2010 His efforts in that field made him one of the three main coordinators—one being his friend idol and fan Dr Sergio Tufik—of a large 10year sleep project developed in the Federal University of São PauloRoberto’s passion for teaching made him one of the most esteemed educators not only at his university but at several other universities in Brazil He lectured around the country and was an important and highminded contributor to scientific meetings for more than two decades It was not unusual to see students greeting him after courses thanking him for the best class they ever attended It is a testament to his qualities as an extraordinarily wise teacher and unique human being that he was among the most honored teachers of Federal University of São Paulo for the classes he taught in biomedicine medicine and nursing courses and that an award was created in his memory by students of the São Paulo State University the Roberto FrussaFilho Award for Scientific InitiationAs well as his remarkable achievements in the academic field Roberto was an extremely captivating person always surrounded by good people and known to be a devoted and honest friend In addition to science he had great passion for dogs football tennis literature poetry music movies and finally love On a personal note Roberto was most delighted by and proud of his two sons Gustavo and Rafael and was a loving father and husband In addition to his sons and myself—his wife—Roberto is survived by his mother Daisy his father Roberto siblings Denise and Gilberto as well as an innumerable number of people whom he touched and who carry the most vivid and worthy memories of him

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