XXIV TMRC
XXIV Tropical Medicine Research Center
III International Symposium on Neurogastroenterology and Motility
Capes Print International Program in Biomedicine, NUBIMED, FAMED, UFC
5-6 May 2022 – Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
Introduction
The annual meeting in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene & Pharmacology is a regular scientific event, which started in 1996 and now complete its twenty-fourth edition. The event was created to bring together professors, researchers, and students interested in the scientific and technological development of research on tropical diseases that afflict populations in the Brazilian semiarid region. Initially the event was held by effective participation of three national and three international researchers’ groups. The Brazilian groups were led by professors Aldo AM Lima, Federal University of Ceará, Edgar M. Carvalho, Federal University of Bahia, and Selma Jerônimo, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. The international groups were led by the researchers, Richard L. Guerrant, University of Virginia, CHO, VA, Warren Johnson, Cornell University, NY, and Lee W. Riley, University of California, Berkeley, CA. The event has covered topics of ongoing research and perspectives in several areas of tropical medicine such as leishmaniasis, leptospirosis, diarrheal diseases, tropical enteropathy, malnutrition, human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), leprosy, tuberculosis, among others. The event will be held in Fortaleza, CE, May 5-6, 2020. It is open to the public of researchers, professors, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as technical personnel, receiving annually 40-60 people. The event has contributed to the development of research in tropical medicine and hygiene & pharmacology, sustaining research networks at the regional, national and international levels in areas of interest in public health, especially in the Brazilian semiarid region. In the last seven years, we have the effective participation of two INCTs (Biomedicine- http://www.nubimed.ufc.br and Immunology of Tropical Diseases- inct.cnpq.br/web/inct-dt). The event has been fundamental in the creation of a long-term sustainable research networks (RECODISA: http://www.recodisa.ufc.br; MAL-ED: http://www.upcibimed.ufc.br/MAL-ED) as well as to revigorated the postgraduate degrees in Medical Sciences (Level 6 CAPES), Microbiology (Level 5 CAPES), Pharmacology (Level 6 CAPES) and Morphofunctional Sciences (Level 4 CAPES), as well as demonstrating its importance in national and global public health.
Brief history of previous editions
In the last forty years, initially two national research groups, led by professors Aldo AM Lima and Edgar M. Carvalho, developed important lines of research related to tropical medicine, leishmaniasis and diarrheal diseases & malnutrition, at Universidade Federal do Ceará and Bahia, respectively. Subsequently, a third group led by Professor Selma Jerônimo from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, also emerged in the in leishmaniasis theme. From the beginning, these three research groups have maintained relevant and significant international collaboration with international groups led by researchers, Richard L. Guerrant, Warren Johnson, and Lee W. Riley. The development and progress of these research groups led to the aggregation of new researchers and financial support by national research funding agencies, CNPq and CAPES, as well from abroad, such as the National Institute of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, and most recently the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The common environment of research related to tropical medicine led to the formatting of the event, Annual Meeting in Tropical Medicine Research Center & Pharmacology. The first meeting took place in mid-March 1996. Figure 1 illustrates only the researchers participating in the II Annual Meeting of the Tropical Medicine Research Center in Salvador, BA, in March-1997. Note researchers Lee W. Riley (1st from left to right), Aldo AM Lima (3rd), Edgar M Carvalho (6th in the first line), Selma Jerônimo (8th in the first line), Richard Pearson, UVa, CHO, VA (1st. On the second line), and Warren Johnson (2nd. On the second line).
Figure 2 shows the team of speakers, graduate and undergraduate students which attended the XXIII Tropical Medicine Research Center in December 2019. The longevity of this event is based mainly on the regional, national and international interaction and collaboration of researchers interested with lines of research on Tropical Medicine and Hygiene & Pharmacology. This network has engedered a fruitful scientific and technological production, allowing the training of human resources at postgraduate, graduate, and technical level. Over this period were developed two international research agreements between UFBA & University of Cornell and UFC, UFRGN & University of Virginia, which today constitute international scientific and technological cooperation models for several other national and international institutions. As a result of the promotion of these annual and regular meetings, it was developed two INCTs, Biomedicine and Immunology of Tropical Diseases, and two research networks, RECODISA (www.recodisa.ufc.br) and MAL-ED (www.mal-ed.fnih.org), nationally and internationally. The list of participants in these events and today formed through national and international graduate programs as evidenced in the leaders’ CVs lattes, demonstrates the training capacity of human resources that had directly or indirectly promoted these annual and regular meetings of the Tropical Medicine Research Center. Leading researchers were recognized by national and international societies such as the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, ASTMH and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, ABC. The quality of this training can be realized by the fact that the majority, > 80% of graduates, are now researchers and / or professors from national and / or international institutions. It is important to mention that these international collaborations has been essential for the international insertion of our graduate programs. The quality of this academic exchange was recognized by the CAPES, principal Brazilian agency dedicated for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, which aproved the project “Internationalization of the Federal University of Ceará in Translational and Epidemiological Research in NeuroGastroenterology”, according the therms of the International Collaboration Program CAPES-PRINT (2018-2022), recently renowned for the next three years. By the way, it allowed to expand the academic exchange of the Federal University of Ceará to the Queen Mary University of London with Prof. Daniel Sifrim, a world-renowned expert on esophageal motility, as well as to the University of Liverpool with Prof. David Criddle, a lecturer on molecular physiology & cell signaling with long-standing interest on calcium and ROS roles in acute pancreatitis.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event was interrupted. In 2022, the XXIV Tropical Medicine Research Center & Pharmacology and III International Symposium in Neurogastroenterology and Motility will be resumed, this time via Internet, allowing a broader attendance. As one can see in the preliminary program, the event is structured as usual, i.e. with sessions dedicated to major public health problems, with lecture by scholars and oral presentations by graduate students followed by discussion with the audience.
