Experimental protocols consolidation using human pathogenic fungi in the Bi-Institutional Platform for Research in Translational Medicine.

• Grant number: 23/09798-7
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - Brazil
• Start date: September 01, 2023
• End date: August 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Immunology - Cellular Immunology
• Principal Investigator: João Santana da Silva
• Grantee: João Santana da Silva
• Visiting researcher: Anamelia Lorenzetti Bocca
• Visiting researcher institution: Instituto De Ciências Biológicas/Ib/Unb, Brazil
• Host Institution: Plataforma de Pesquisa e Medicina Translacional. Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz). Ministério da Saúde (Brasil). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/08216-2 - CRID - Center for Research in Inflammatory Diseases, AP.CEPID

Abstract

This is a project with two main objectives. The first is to set up a mycology laboratory to support and train students (graduate and post-docs), including giving discipline on the relationship between hosts and pathogenic fungi. As is known, the number of fungal infections has increased in recent decades, representing a critical threat to human health. These infections are observed both in immunocompromised patients, caused by opportunistic fungi, and in immunocompetent patients, caused by primary fungi. Although fungi are causative agents of a broad spectrum of diseases, from superficial to systemic infections, there is an evident lack of research on fungal infections. Published data on morbidity and mortality from fungal diseases are underestimated due to diagnostic difficulties and a lack of compulsory reporting. Furthermore, there is a notable increase in fungal resistance to available treatments and co-infections, such as that observed during COVID-19. Thus, considering the importance of emerging and re-emerging fungal infections, the second objective is to take advantage of the presence of the visiting professor, a specialist in this area, and implement and strengthen studies using human pathogenic fungi here at the Platform for Research in Translational Medicine Fiocruz/ SP. We will set up and maintain a myco collection, nucleate a research group, offer another discipline in the Graduate Program in Basic and Applied Immunology at FMRP-USP, and there will be, from now on, the guidance of a doctoral student. From a scientific point of view, factors involved in the reactivation of dormant fungi of an opportunistic and primary species of Cryptococcus in animals coinfected with the murine influenza virus will be determined. A survey of cases of co-infection of fungal infections and SARS-CoV-2 will also be carried out in patients treated at the Hospital das Clínicas de Ribeirão Preto-USP. With this collaboration, it is expected that the interphase area of mycology and immunology will be consolidated in the Fiocruz unit in São Paulo and the USP Campuses in Ribeirão Preto. (AU)