In this talk I will give a brief overview on the Brazilian nuclear community focused on nuclear reactions and structure. Experimental activities are carried out at the São Paulo University, using a 8-MV Tandem accelerator. Main recent research has been focused on nuclear reactions induced by stable heavy ions (mostly the ^6,7Li and ^10,11B projectiles) and radioactive nuclei, such as ⁶He, ⁸Li, ⁸B. From the theoretical front, we have been applying a multichannel approach, in which some parameters of the coupled channel calculations, such as the optical potential and spectroscopic amplitudes are constrained by elastic scattering data and nuclear shell models. Some recent publications will be covered with emphasis on proton-rich nuclei and the (possibly) limitations of the reduction method often used to compare the reduced reaction cross sections among the systems.