Every day, the teachers of Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública demonstrate more of their abilities for health research. The most recent proof of this is the achievement of the Biomedicine professor Dr. Jaqueline Góes de Jesus, who managed to get her post-doctoral internship approved at the University of São Paulo (USP).

Bahiana interviewed Dr. Jaqueline de Jesus to understand more about her study project and how this achievement contributes to her academic trajectory.


Bahiana: What is the post-doctorate you are going to attend?

Jaqueline Góes de Jesus – Como estágio de pós-doutoramento, estou desenvolvendo o projeto “Modelagem da dispersão espaço-temporal de arbovírus emergentes, usando fontes de dados heterogêneas no Estado de São Paulo”, como bolsista da Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), sob coordenação da Dra. Ester Sabino, no Instituto de Medicina Tropical da Universidade de São Paulo (IMT-USP).

Bahiana: What is the research line and what will be studied?

Jaqueline Góes de Jesus – A linha de pesquisa é Clínica Médica na especialidade Doenças Infecciosas e Parasitárias, especificamente em arboviroses dentro do CADDE (http://caddecentre.org). As arboviroses são infecções virais causadas pelos vírus transmitidos por mosquitos vetores e que têm trazido grande preocupação para os setores de saúde pública. Recentemente, o Brasil vivenciou um cenário de surtos, causado pelas emergências dos vírus Zika e Chikungunya, aliado à reemergência do vírus da febre amarela.

Considering that the epidemic caused by ZIKV is concurrent with that caused by CHIKV and that the re-emergence of the YFV alerted to the risk of reestablishing urban transmission, the rapid identification of viruses and knowledge of their genomes, as well as the occurrence and viability of vectors associated, have become crucial strategies for monitoring viral diversity and spread. 

Thus, this project aims to study ecological and epidemiological factors of the dispersion and sylvatic distribution of arboviruses in time and space, from a wide variety of sources (human cases, host vectors, vertebrates, etc.) in several important locations in the state of São Paulo to study phylogeography and the molecular clock together with ecological descriptors.

Bahiana: How do you feel about this change in your life?

Jaqueline Góes de Jesus – Minha história com a pesquisa se iniciou muito cedo, desde os primeiros semestres da graduação em Biomedicina (cursada na Bahiana) and as a Scientific Initiation student. So, I became more and more involved, establishing myself in the academic area, with a master's degree, which was followed by a doctorate, recently awarded as the best thesis of the Gonçalo Moniz Prize in the category Egress of Post-Graduate Studies in Human Pathology at Fiocruz/Bahia .

When I was finishing my master's, I went back to Bahiana, this time as a professor of Biomedicine and I felt extremely fulfilled and also responsible for transmitting in-depth knowledge during the postgraduate course.

With this in mind, I have always encouraged students who, in some way, were interested in the area of ​​science, either with examples of performance in the classroom, or with the dissemination of opportunities and my own performance in projects with an impact on health public, such as the Zibra project (http://zibraproject.org) and, more recently, the CADDE projects (http://caddecentre.org).

Nós professores, pelo contato direto com os estudantes, conseguimos ter um feedback em tempo real, tanto do processo de aprendizado quanto da inspiração que provocamos neles.  Quando fui aprovada no processo seletivo, após conversar com a Coordenação, na figura do professor Geraldo Ferraro, também comuniquei aos estudantes mais próximos as mudanças que vivenciaria, não só na troca de cidade como também nas perspectivas dentro da área científica. O que pude perceber, pelos comentários que recebo até hoje, é que eles se sentem muito motivados a seguir a carreira científica pelos exemplos que eles têm não apenas de mim, mas dos outros professores biomédicos, formados pela Bahiana and that act equally in scientific research.

Working at USP, which is one of the most productive research institutions in Latin America, and in partnership with the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham, has been an enriching experience. The postdoctoral development has provided my improvement as a scientist in a more essential way, being, in fact, training so that, in the future, I can develop my research, if possible associated with teaching in the same Bahiana.