IX Simpaid

Continuing the programming of the IX Brazilian Symposium on Basic Research on HIV/AIDS, the Bahiana, great organizer of the event, hosted, from September 5th to 7th, the II Brazilian Workshop on HTLV-1 and HIV-1 Sequence Database for the study of human retroviruses and vaccine support. Having as its target audience researchers working in the areas of resistance to antiretroviral drugs, research on potential vaccine products against HIV-1/AIDS and clinical and epidemiological research on HTLV-1 infection, the course promoted the training of participants in the bioinformatics segment. with a view to analyzing and cataloging the various sequences of the DNA chain of the HIV virus.

“Like the flu virus, the HIV virus is very mutable. That's why this course that we're doing here is important, because through computer programs you can better study the sequences of the virus and better look for that region where it is not changing so that, from there, we can test antivirus (vaccines). These studies must also be temporary, precisely because of the change that the virus undergoes”, explains Prof. Dr. Luís Alcântara, researcher at CPqGM/FIOCRUZ and professor at Bahiana.

The IX Simpaids was an achievement of Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública and had the support of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Foundation for Research Support of the State of Bahia (Fapesb), Fiocruz and the Ministry of Health.

The event brought together important names in research in the HIV/AIDS segment from around the world, with speakers Dr. Bernardo Galvão Castro Filho, senior researcher at LASP/CPqGM/FIOCRUZ and coordinator of the HTLV and Viral Hepatitis Center at Bahiana; Dr. Cristina Possas, responsible for the Research and Technological Development Unit - PN DST/AIDS of the Ministry of Health; Dr Anne-Mieke Vandamme, researcher and professor at the Rega Institute, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium; Dr. Massimo Cicozzi, researcher and professor at the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy; Dr. David Watkins, lead researcher in the Vaccines Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA; and Dr. Genoveffa Franchini, chief researcher of the animal model vaccine laboratory at the US National Institute of Health, among others.

Biomedicine Researchers/ Bahiana

The program included the presentation of the 1st HTLV-1 virus sequence bank, research theme of the master's thesis of the ex-student of the Biomedicine course at Bahiana, Thessika Hialla Araujo (CNPq/Fiocruz).

“We've been working for two years on building a database that has collections from around the world. Then we work from the sequence (of the virus) to the clinical profile of the patient (associated diseases, gender, age). Thus, the database is very important, both for us to know more about the disease, and for making a vaccine”, explains Thessika.

Another former student of the Biomedicine course at Bahiana who participated in Simpaids is the doctoral student Luciane Santos. His research studies the gene of the agent that transmits leptospirosis, which may have different origins, which causes different symptoms in affected victims. "We need a database for rapid testing studies and early detection of the disease, promoting more effective treatment." Luciane says that there is often a delay in the diagnosis of leptospirosis due to the different manifestations of the symptoms.