teacher of Bahiana is approved in a postdoctoral internship at the University of São Paulo

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 – As a postdoctoral internship, I'm developing the project “Modelling the spatiotemporal dispersion of emerging arboviruses using heterogeneous data sources in the State of São Paulo”, with a scholarship from the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP), under the coordination of Dr. Ester Sabino, at the Tropical Medicine Institute of the University of São Paulo (IMT-USP).

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

Jaqueline Góes de Jesus – The research line is Clinical Medicine in the specialty Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, specifically in arboviruses within CADDE (http://caddecentre.org). Arboviruses are viral infections caused by viruses transmitted by mosquito vectors that have brought great concern to public health sectors. Recently, Brazil experienced an outbreak scenario, caused by the emergence of the Zika and Chikungunya viruses, together with the re-emergence of the yellow fever virus.

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 – My history with research began very early, from the first semesters of undergraduate studies in Biomedicine (attending at 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).

We professors, through direct contact with students, were able to have a feedback in real time, both of the learning process and the inspiration we provoke in them. When I was approved in the selection process, after talking to the Coordination, in the figure of Professor Geraldo Ferraro, I also communicated to the closest students the changes I would experience, not only in the change of city but also in perspectives within the scientific area. What I could see, from the comments I receive so far, is that they feel very motivated to pursue a scientific career because of the examples they have not only of me, but of other biomedical professors, trained by 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.