Sidarta Ribeiro


Sidarta Tollendal Gomes Ribeiro is a Brazilian neuroscientist, Director of the Brain Institute at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, which he joined in 2008 as Full Professor. From 2009-2011, he served as Secretary of the Brazilian Society for Neuroscience and Behavior. Sidarta Ribeiro is currently the Chair of the Regional Committee in Brazil of the Pew Latin American Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences. He is also member of the Steering Committee of the Latin American School for Educational, Cognitive and Neural Sciences .

Gathering Neuroscientists in Natal

In the 1990s, Sidarta Ribeiro and fellow neuroscientists Claudio Mello, Sergio Neuenschwander, Antonio Pereira, Cecília Hedin-Pereira, Claudia Vargas and Mário Fiorani, began the repatriation project that gave origin to the International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal, founded by Sidarta Ribeiro, Miguel Nicolelis and Claudio Mello in 2003. This initiative was promoted by the public sector, with decisive support from the Ministries of Education and Science. As a consequence, the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte undertook the creation of a world-class neuroscience research center in Natal as part of its strategic plan for future development. In order to implement the project in a solid manner, the university engaged since 2008 in a major recruitment effort, publicized internationally in venues such as Nature and Science magazine, to recruit a group of faculty with international training in some of the most prestigious research centers in the world. The group currently includes 18 faculty duly selected by public contests: Adriano Tort, Antonio Pereira, Maria Bernardete de Sousa, Claudio Queiroz, Diego Laplagne, Draulio de Araujo, Lia Bevilaqua, Katarina Leão, Kerstin Schmidt, Marcos Costa, Martin Cammarota, Richardson Leão, Rodrigo Pereira, Sandro de Souza, Sergio Neuenschwander, Sidarta Ribeiro, and Tarciso Velho. On May 13, 2011, Sidarta Ribeiro took part in the inauguration of the Brain Institute, together with Ivonildo do Rego and Angela Paiva, former and current Presidents of UFRN, academic leaders, faculty, technicians and students. On July 26, 2011, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo published an article reporting the split between Miguel Nicolelis and the faculty of UFRN recruited for the Natal Neuroscience project. The main reason cited for the split was the lack of access of the University’s faculty to the equipment at IINN-ELS. This information was confirmed by Science magazine. An article in the Brazilian magazine Piauí further clarified that the faculty exodus from the ELS-IINN was caused by widespread dissatisfaction with Nicolelis’ management.

Academic Degrees

Selected scientific publications