Chega de ranço! 🇧🇷

I’ll be giving a plenary lecture at ENQA 2026 (22nd Brazilian Meeting of Analytical Chemistry), September 15–18 in Maceió — one of the largest analytical chemistry gatherings in Latin America. 

The title of my talk is “Chega de Ranço – Analytical Data as the Ground Truth for AI-Designed Antioxidant Synergies” and it will cover the idea that an AI model is only as good as the data it learns from, and antioxidant synergy prediction is no exception. I’ll walk through how oxidative-stability measurements become the ground truth that lets a model actually predict — rather than guess — how an antioxidant mixture will behave in a real matrix, and how we’re putting that to work at Migma to move formulation from trial-and-error toward something closer to design.

In case you wonder about the title, it was inspired by a musical masterpiece from Tom Jobim (Chega de saudade), also known as “No More Blues”. The title of the song can be roughly translated as “enough longing”, though the Portuguese word saudade carries a more complex meaning, more like an intense homesickness. In our case, the title of the seminar includes chega de (which has an implication similar to the colloquial expression “enough already”) and the word ranço (although literally means rancidity, it is also used to describe a strong feeling of annoyance, irritation, or an inexplicable dislike toward someone). Pretty much the way we feel about lipid oxidation 😀 

Looking forward to a great week of science with the Brazilian analytical chemistry community.

If you’ll be at ENQA 2026, let’s connect!