Walk with Wente: Patricia Dos Santos
President Wente walks and talks with Patricia Dos Santos about biochemistry, enzymes and current research that could help develop better technologies for natural fertilizers to mitigate the environmental damage done by artificial fertilizers. “Enzymes are present in all aspects of metabolism and can help us understand human disease and nitrogen fixation in plants,” Dos Santos said. She has seen many of her students go on to graduate school and successful research careers, including one who is a Fulbright Scholar in Germany. “As faculty, we are forever learners,” she said. “It is a privilege to be a mentor to undergraduate and graduate students.”
More about Patricia Dos Santos:
Wake Forest Professor of Chemistry and Associate Chair
Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
Patricia Dos Santos joined the chemistry faculty at Wake Forest in 2008. An accomplished researcher and mentor, she also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Wake Forest School of Medicine.
Throughout her career, she has received numerous honors for her research and dedication to students. Dos Santos won Wake Forest’s 2020 URECA Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentorship in Research. She also received the 2013 Faculty Excellence in Research Award and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to support her research. She contributed her expertise to the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review as a member of the Macromolecular Structure and Function Study Section from 2020 to 2024.
Dos Santos teaches advanced biochemistry and runs an active research lab. She has also co-directed a summer research mentored program at Wake Forest for undergraduates from neighboring institutions since 2011. She has published dozens of papers in academic journals. Her research interests focus on the functional and mechanistic assignment of biochemical pathways in bacteria, including the biosynthesis of iron-sulfur clusters, thionucleosides, and biothiols.
Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, she received a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the Federal University of the Rio Grande do Sul. She earned a Ph.D in 2004 from Virginia Tech. In her dissertation work, she used a combination of microbial genetics, biochemical, and spectroscopic techniques to study. the “Biosynthesis and Function of Nitrogenase Metalloclusters”, which she continues to apply in research at Wake Forest University.
Research Highlights
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