Scientific Divulgation of Instrumentation Center: Centralized Multi-User Laboratory of Functional Genomics Applied to Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Agroenergy.

• Grant number: 17/07005-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Journalism
• Start date: October 01, 2017
• End date: March 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications - Journalism and Publishing
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Lehmann Coutinho
• Grantee: Tássia Oliveira Biazon
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Coordenadoria de Centros e Núcleos Disciplinares (COCEN). Núcleo de Desenvolvimento da Criatividade (NUDECRI), Brazil

Abstract

The 21st century, composed of a society that produces a great deal of information, can be characterized as the information age. However, it can also be considered as the era of misinformation, since there is more content to misinform than to inform. One of the challenges of contemporaneity is to produce relevant and reliable information, presenting the facts with criticality, which is made possible by a communication of excellence. One of the areas of communication is the scientific journalism, which aims to disseminate the various subjects that permeate science, allowing the reader a critical understanding of scientific issues. Today, the importance of scientific knowledge is unquestionable, especially in the area of genetics, which, with the advancement of genome sequencing, has caused several impacts on society: be it in the privacy of individuals, in public health, in the production of energy and food etc. Thus, often with little understanding, the population has to decide on the consumption of transgenic foods, the use of genetic tests that indicate the probability of the development of a disease, the financing of education and scientific research etc. The present work aims at the production of journalistic content about the several researches that use the Instrumentation Center: Centralized Multi-User Laboratory of Functional Genomics Applied to Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Agroenergy of the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ) of the University of São Paulo (USP). Although the Center provides more research related to agriculture and agroenergy, it serves a diversity of scientific studies, linked, for example, to cancer and biodiversity. Installed on the campus of USP in Piracicaba, the Center serves other universities, such as the São Paulo State University (Unesp) and the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), as well as research centers such as the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and companies such as the Boticário Group, Souza Cruz and Agroceres. The products of scientific divulgation of this project will be published in publications of the Communication Division (DvComun) of ESALQ, as well as the use of the Genomics Center website, as well as other dissemination vehicles that may be feasible, such as the USP Journal. In order to shorten the distance between the scientist, the science and the citizen, and highlighting the essential role of scientific journalism in this process, this project aims to converge the implications of the scientific research developed in a national reference Center and its respective impacts on society.