The Alpha-Helix expeditions to the Amazon
Adalberto Luis Val & Vera Maria Fonseca de Almeida-Val
Laboratory of Ecophysiology and Molecular Evolution, Brazilian National Institute for Research of the Amazon (INPA)
The Alpha-Helix research vessel of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (USA) was in the Amazon in
two moments that became eternal regarding the physiology and biochemistry of the region's fish. As
emphasized by the coordinators of the second expedition “Biochemists and Physiologists who are willing to
take their skills and their laboratories to the organisms in its environment rather than vice versa are, amongst
other things, opportunists. Perhaps because they are away from the security and familiarity of their own
laboratories, they are, or quickly become acutely sensitive to peripheral possibilities, unexpected
opportunities, and novel problems. Or so, at least, it seemed to us on our expedition to the Amazon”. In its
first moment in the region, which took place in 1967, 86 scientists from 12 countries participated, publishing
more than a hundred of exciting scientific articles for Amazonian fish in different journals. The 1967
expedition was attended by renowned scientists who contributed to establishing the foundations of modern
physiology and biochemistry, as Peter Hochachka, Kjell Johansen, Luiz Carlos Junqueira, Claude Lenfant,
Paulo Sawaya, Per Sholander, and Knut Schmidt-Nielsen. A strong connection between INPA and Canadian
researchers began to be shaped from that moment on. Sholander played a very important role in organizing
this expedition. The first studies on the lactate dehydrogenase enzyme of a species of Amazonian fish were
carried out on this 1967 expedition and were published by Hochachka in 1968. These studies have gained
new dimensions on the next Alpha Helix expedition and have been deepened ever since with the advent of
molecular biology in our laboratory, which still maintains strong interaction with colleagues who were part
of Hochachka's group. Alpha-Helix returned to the Amazon in 1976 and the expedition was divided into two
phases. On this return to the Amazon, the ship was moored in Lake Janauacá due to “a great abundance of
fish”. The first phase was coordinated by David Randall and Peter Hochachka with the participation of 33
scientists from seven countries. The findings of this phase were published through 44 articles in a special
volume of the Canadian Journal of Zoology (volume 56) in 1976. Over the following decades, Randall and
Hochachka made a remarkable contribution to receiving Brazilians in their laboratories and contributing to
the consolidation of an important international network for research on physiology and biochemistry of
Amazonian fish. It was at this phase of the expedition that Isaacks, Bartlett, and other collaborators
discovered the presence of inositol pentaphostate (IPP) in the erythrocytes of Arapaima gigas (pirarucu). We
later found that the concentration of IPP increases over the first year of pirarucu's life. The late Grant Bartlett
visited INPA many times and collaborated with our group. The second phase of the 1976 expedition was
coordinated by Austen Riggs and brought together 22 scientists from six countries. This phase was designed
to study the blood and hemoglobins of Amazonian fish. The findings were published through 34 articles in a
special volume of the Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology (volume 62A). Brazilian scientists also
participated in this second phase of the expedition, as Arno Schwantes, Aldo Focesi and Izabel Galdames-
Portus. Over the next decade Schwantes, from Federal University of São Carlos, joined INPA as a
postgraduate program advisor and Galdames returned to a postdoc in our lab and was later hired as professor
with Federal University of Amazonas. Participants of the 1976 expedition who later interacted with INPA
also included William Driedzic, Thomas Fisher, Dennis Powers, Roy Weber, and Christopher Wood. With
Weber, many years later, we published a study on the effect of 2,3DPG on Hoplosternum littorale
hemoglobins. Wood and Driedzic are current members of our research team. Like the first naturalists who
visited the Amazon in the 1800s and the pioneering Carter & Beadle expedition in 1930 to Paraguayan
Chaco, the Alpha Helix expedition of 1967 and 1976 left a fundamental legacy for those who want to study
the physiology and biochemistry of fish of the Amazon.
Palavras-chave: Amazonia, Fish, LDH, Blood, Hemoglobin
Apoio: INCT ADAPTA - CNPq, FAPEAM, CAPES