International Cooperation

The faculty members of the PPgCS maintain intense collaboration with faculty and researchers from other institutions and participate in institutional programs aimed at developing human resources for teaching activities, scientific and technological development, and the development of collaborative research projects. Specifically, in 2017, out of the 22 permanent faculty members, 18 (82%) have had institutional cooperation formalized with institutions outside Brazil, as detailed below:

1. Prof. Nicolaus Albert Schriefer: has partnered with Associate Professor Mary Edith Wilson (e-mail: mary-wilson@uiowa.edu) from the University of Iowa, and Professor Lee W. Riley (e-mail: lwriley@berkeley.edu) from the University of California, Berkeley, both in the USA, since 2006. The University of Iowa (USA) maintains a graduate student Exchange Agreement with the Federal University of Bahia, and the University of California at Berkeley holds a molecular epidemiology-training program with activities held in Brazil and in other countries. Training is undertaken by the PPgCS students in these institutions.
2. Profa. Aldina Barral: has conducted projects in cooperation with Professor Fabienne-Tacchini-Cottier (e-mail: Fabienne.Tacchini-Cottier@unil.ch), from WHO-IRTC, Department of Biochemistry, at University of Lausanne, Switzerland, since 2011 and with researcher Johan Van Weyenbergh, from Leuven, in Belgium, regarding the identification and validation of clinical markers in HIV and HTLV infections.
3. Professor Álvaro Augusto Cruz: has worked with several international institutions, namely: School of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in London, UK, where he interacts with researcher and director Professor Laura C. Rodrigues; Johns Hopkins University, in the United States, where he cooperates with Professor Kathleen C. Barnes and the U-Biopred project, funded by the European Union for the study of severe asthma conditions, in which he works with Professor Peter Sterk. In addition, Professor Cruz has been leading the UFBA Nucleus of Excellence in Asthma (PRONEX - CNPq / FAPESB) since 2010, bringing together leading researchers from Bahia (Edgar M. Carvalho, Maria Ilma Araújo, Maurício L. Barreto, Neuza Alcântara-Neves from UFBA and Isaac S. Goes Filho from UEFS), from São Paulo (Alberto Cukier and Rafael Stelmach from USP), and from abroad. He also participates as a researcher at the National Institute of Science, Technology and Innovation in Health (CITECS) coordinated by Professor Maurício Barreto.
4. Professor Camila Indiani Oliveira: has worked in cooperation with Professor Kwang-Poo Chang (e-mail: kwangpoo.chang@rosalindfranklin.edu), from the Chicago Medical School, in the United States, since 2009, as Professor Chang is a Foreign Visiting Researcher of the CNPq Science without Borders Program.
5. Professora Cláudia Brodskyn: has worked with Dr. Jesus Valenzuela of Mexico and with Dr. Shaden Kamhawi (Dr. Kamhawi is a Foreign Visiting Researcher of the CNPq Science without Borders Program), from the Vector Molecular Biology Unit at the National Institute of Health (NIH)) in the United States, since 2009. The cooperation includes the supply of reagents, non-marketed inputs, in addition to training to test candidates for canine Leishmaniasis vaccine.
6. Professor Cristiana Maria Nascimento-Carvalho: initiated research in cooperation with the Pan-American Health Organization in Washington, DC, USA, in 1997; as the line of research evolved, she established quite active partnerships with the National Institute for Health and Welfare  (Professor Helena Kayhty and Professor Maija Leinonen), with the University of Turku (Prof. Olli Ruuskanen, Prof. Raija Vainionpaa, Prof. Tytti Vuorinen), and the University of Helsinki (Professor Maria Soderlum-Venermo, Professor Maija Lapallainen and Professor Mirja Puolakkainen), being all of them institutions of excellence in research in Finland. She has also been working with Prof. Dominique Gendrel, from Paris Descartes University in France, with Professor Otávio Ramilo from the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Nationwide Children's Hospital, at Ohio State University College of Medicine, United States. She has been a member of the board of tutors of the European Society of Pediatric Infectology since 2006, and in 2012 she became a consultant to the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washintong, DC, USA, work that included estimating the burden of pneumococcal disease in Latin America and the CARIBBEAN. Several of her students have participated in projects in cooperation with partner institutions.
7. Professor Eduardo Martins Netto: has been working in cooperation in Germany with Professor Jan Felix Drexler of the University of Bonn in the field of virology, regarding animals and human beings, since 2008, and with the University College of London with Professor Ibrahim Abubakar in the field of tuberculosis since 2014.
8. Professor Jamary Oliveira Filho: started cooperating with Harvard University in 2004, specifically developing research at the Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration with Professor Karen L. Furie, for analysis of biomarkers in the study of Chagas Disease. This cooperation enabled the post-doc senior internship of Professor Oliveira Netto, between June 2013 and May 2014.
9. Professor Lucas Pedreira de Carvalho: has been working with Professor Sara Passos, since 2005, in cooperation with the University of Pennsilvania, in the United States, in partnership with Professor Phillip Scott (e-mail: pscott@vet.upenn.edu) and Daniel Beiting (beiting@vet.upenn.edu). The research entails the determination of mechanisms involved in immune-pathogenesis and tissue damage in tegumentary leishmaniasis.
10. Professor Manoel Barral-Netto: has been working in cooperation with Professor Manuel Soto of the Autonomous University of Madrid (e-mail: m.soto@cbm.csic.es), in Spain, at Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center / Department of Molecular Biology, since the year 2006.
11. Professor Maria Lourdes Farré Valve: works in international cooperation with Dr. Alberto Villanueva of the Catalan Institute of Oncology, in Barcelona (Spain), developing research projects on chemo-resistance in solid tumors. In this partnership, the researchers develop preclinical models based on orthotopic implanting of human tumors in immunosuppressed mice, the so-called Orthoxenografts, which are considered to be the ones closest to the patient, allowing not only the study of tumor biology but also the development and testing of new antitumor compounds and personalized oncology strategies.
12. Professor Raymundo Paraná: has worked in cooperation with the University of Rosario, Argentina, specifically in the investigation of Hepatitis B Virus in Latin America, and with the Merrieux Foundation in France, from where he has received support for setting up and developing research laboratories for cases of hepatitis.
13. Professor Ricardo Khouri: has a long-term partnership with Professor Dr. Anne-Mieke Vandamme of the Rega Institute for Medical Research – Katholieke  Universiteite Leuven – Belgium. During the years 2006 to 2014, Professor Khouri undertook an education/training project in the laboratory of Professor Dr. Anne-Mieke Vandamme, obtaining a rich training in the field of bioinformatics and microbiology, strengthening notions of epidemiology, management of large clinical databases and both uni and multivariate analyzes. He has developed a methodology that allows integrating clinical, immunological and genetic data into a clinically applicable mathematical/algorithmic model. In addition, he actively participated in research projects focused on microarray and nanostring, besides developing experiments with functional analysis of genes, contributing to the development of translational research.
14. Professors Edgar Marcelino Carvalho, 15) Lea Castellucci, 16) Marcus Miranda Lessa, 17) Maria Olíevia Bacellar, 18) Paulo Roberto Lima Machado 

A collaboration project inside the “International Collaboration in Infectious Diseases (ICIDR)” program, entitled "The Role of Innate Cells in the Pathogenesis of Leishmania Braziliensis Infection" (AI088650) was also renewed in 2016 by the NIH, having as main collaborators Dr. Philip Scott (University of Pennsylvania), David Mosser (University of Maryland), Edward Pearce (Washington University). The coordinators of this project are Dr. Phillip Scott and Edgar M. Carvalho and professors of PPgCS Lucas Carvalho, Olívia Bacellar, Paulo Machado and Sara Passos also participate in this project.

A Brazil-Switzerland collaboration project entitled Spatial-temporal dynamics, risk factors and burden estimates of neglected Tropical Diseases in Brazil has also been initiated. This project has as principal investigators Professor Edgar M. Carvalho and Dr. Penelope Vounatsou, at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Basel, Switzerland. The project is funded by CNPq and offers training abroad for Brazilians.

A collaborative project with Dr Lee Riley titled Association of tuberculosis and human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection has also been initiated. This project is funded by CNPq, having Edgar M. Carvalho is the main researcher and counting with 1 doctorate student of the PPgCS (Camila Farias Amorim).

The project Immunological Response, Viral Factors and Helminth Infections in Disease Expression in HTLV-1 Infection was approved by NIH, coordinated by Professor Edgar M. Carvalho and having the collaboration of Dr. Marshall J. Glesby. The following PPgCS students take part in this project: Rosana Andrade and Camila Farias Amorim, besides the post-doctor Anselmo Souza, and the recent doctors Matheus Tannus, Davi Tanajura, and Thiago Cunha.

The clinical epidemiology course taught by Drs. Daniel Fitzgerald and Marshall Glesby of Weill Medical College of Cornell University is annually available for the PPgCS. Also annually, professors of the Department of Immunology at Professor Edgard Santos University Hospital Complex (COM-HUPES) and PPgCS professors host a student from an American institution in order to develop clinical research with support of Fogarty International Center – National Institute of Health (NIH).  In this program, a PPgCS postgraduate student participates as a partner of the international student.

In this context, one can notice the wide involvement that the PPgCS permanent professors have in different institutions in many countries, such as the United States, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland, and Argentina, which tremendously helps the investment in training PPgCS doctorate students in excellent research institutions.