| Grant number: | 08/57881-0 |
| Support Opportunities: | Research Projects - Thematic Grants |
| Start date: | March 01, 2009 |
| End date: | February 28, 2015 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Immunology - Applied Immunology |
| Agreement: | CNPq - INCTs |
| Principal Investigator: | Jorge Elias Kalil Filho |
| Grantee: | Jorge Elias Kalil Filho |
| Host Institution: | Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
Abstract
Immunology was the first branch of medicine to develop and use biodrugs. Today, approximately 40 monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins are in use in clinical practice and another 50 are being evaluated in clinical trials for the treatment of different immunologic and hemathologic diseases, cancer, allergies and graft rejection. In spite of the considerable advances in our cellular and molecular understanding of the pathologic processes that affect humans, our understanding of the mechanisms behind many diseases are still lagging, and therefore so is treatment. The progress in the immunotherapy and diagnosis of many diseases is hampered by our inability to define the complex molecular pathways behind these diseases, suggesting that and integrated approach that includes clinical, molecular, epidemiologic tools as well as bioinformatics will be required to find solutions for these questions. The recent failure in the development of promising novel HIV vaccines indicate that broader approaches are required to innovate in vaccine design. The same paradigm applies to cancer treatment, immunotherapy for graft rejection, infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases and allergies. The ineffectiveness of contemporary science to understand complex biological systems with multi pie parallel interactions, has Iimited the speed with which the knowledge acquired by basic scientists is translated into gains to human health. It is well established today that several diseases of previously unknown etiology are due to dysfunctions of the immune system, either by excessive or inadequate inflammatory responses. The Institute for Investigation in Immunology (III), one of the original Millennium Institutes funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2001, is precisely focused on this issue. Our areas of interest (autoimmune diseases, immunodeficiencies and HIV/AIDS, leishmaniasis, transplants, cancer and allergies) pertain to health problems that affect millions of people in Brazil and all throughout the world. Besides its socio-economic relevance, these diseases are relevant biological models since their study allow the advancement of knowledge of pathophysiologic mechanisms and, therefore, leading to the design of therapeutic strategies based on disease pathogenesis. During its second phase (2005-2008), the III investigators successfully mentored 76 M. Sci. students, 66 Ph.D. students; trained 35 post-doctoral fellows; conducted 2 clinical trials and requested 3 international patents. The scientific output of the 31 members of the Institute during the 2005-2007 period was equivalent to 23% of the indexed national publications in immunology (435 papers from the III out of 1917 Immunology papers from all Brazilian scientists, data from? currículo Lattes? and Scimago, www.scimagojr.com). These data show that how solid our basic research background is, the true source for new discoveries with potential health applications. The III aims to develop translational research to test, in humans, innovative immunotherapeutic approaches developed through experimentation in disease models... (AU)
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