São Paulo will have new laboratories in strategic areas – 03/30/2023 – Science

Since the beginning of the week, a delegation made up of the secretary of Science, Technology and Innovation of the State of São Paulo, Vahan Agopyan, the president of FAPESP, Marco Antonio Zago, the rector of USP (University of São Paulo), Carlos Gilberto Carlotti Junior , and advisors visit French universities and research centers of high interest for the internationalization of Brazilian universities.

This type of trip, with visits to laboratories and access to a large volume of information on how foreign institutions operate, allows Brazilian decision-makers to select the most advantageous partnerships for the country. One of them takes place this Friday (31) with the signing of an agreement with the Pasteur Institute in Paris, specialized in the study of infectious diseases.

“There is a Pasteur laboratory already installed at the university that we called a platform and now it will become an institute within the network of the French Pasteur Institute, through an association with USP”, explains the dean Carlos Carlotti, physician and professor of neurosurgery . Currently, the collaboration between the two institutions revolves around R$ 30 million per year, an amount that will be increased with the creation of the institute.

The focus of the new structure will be the study of new viruses and the identification of future pandemics. The Butantan Institute and Fiocruz join the network as research partner institutions. In the Amazon, for example, there is an important amount of arboviruses —the same category as the dengue, zika, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses— that are still little known to scientists.

“When these pandemics occur, we will be able to quickly identify the viruses and carry out studies on the feasibility of treatment and development of vaccines”, explains the dean of USP. “It’s part of having a great institute in South America to carry out this type of approach”, says Carlotti. The governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, will participate on Friday in the signing of the agreement at the headquarters of the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

The second project that will expand scientific exchange of excellence in São Paulo involves the creation of a CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) laboratory within USP. There will be three to five research areas, structured in large laboratories, which must correspond to CNRS specialties.

“Certainly, one of these laboratories that we will have will be on the humanities”, says Carlotti. The environment, which is a common concern in both France and Brazil, should be represented in a research unit on the Amazon region, agriculture, the role of carbon fixation or carbon release in Brazilian agriculture. The study of the oceans, mainly in the South Atlantic, which is still little known, arouses interest, and could even be associated with Argentina”, explained the dean of USP in an interview with RFI.

To give you an idea of ​​the importance of this agreement, the renowned research center has only four units outside France: two laboratories in the United States, one in England and one in Japan. “We will have the fifth in Brazil and that is a great achievement”, celebrates Carlotti.

France: preferred partner

In less than a week, the Brazilian delegation visited the universities of Lyon, Sorbonne, Paris Sciences and Letters, Paris-Saclay, Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research), the new Agency for Emerging Infectious Diseases ANRS and the CNRS. This Thursday (30), the group visited the Gustave Roussy hospital, in Villejuif, a southern suburb of Paris. This century-old public hospital welcomes Brazilian doctoral students and is now considered the largest cancer treatment and research center in Europe.

With an annual budget of 438 million euros (R$ 2.4 billion), 1,000 full-time researchers and 48,000 patients treated per year, the Gustave Roussy center includes 22% of its patients in research protocols. Of the 14 leading French specialists in oncology, 12 are physicians from that institution and are on the list of most cited scientists in studies in the world.

“The internationalization of research in a country like Brazil is essential”, says state secretary Agopyan, polytechnic and former dean of USP. “We are far from the big centers and we have to be very careful to have a global vision of what is happening”, he says. “Science, technology and innovation are now internationalized, globalized. The best way to internationalize is to make agreements and work together with institutions abroad, not just sending students, sending professors, sending researchers abroad, but bringing researchers to Brazil” , highlights Agopyan. The mobility of scholars and scientists becomes a consequence of this.

In this context, France is a preferential partner for Brazil. “When we look at our joint publications with the world, we have the United States in the first place, due to the economic strength that the United States has, but soon after, France. So, we are really interested in increasing contact with institutions and French universities”, points out Carlotti, from USP.

This favorable environment for science and technology is due to FAPESP (São Paulo State Research Support Foundation), the largest research funding body in Brazil. The 1989 state constitution states that 1% of all taxes collected go to the foundation. The three public universities in São Paulo —USP, Unicamp and Unesp— also have funding defined by decree at 9.57% of ICMS revenue. In 2022, the development agency broke a budget record of 17 billion euros (R$ 95 billion).

The stability in the forecast of resources gives the state of São Paulo security for long-term investments. It also allows Fapesp to finance projects at federal public universities installed in the state, as well as private institutions. These revenues are complemented by about 7% of the state budget devoted to higher education, according to Secretary Agopyan.

Focus on strategic areas

For the president of Fapesp, Marco Antonio Zago, there is a worldwide tendency for agencies and research organizations to define some priority themes that are recognized as important foci for the development of the country where the resources are being applied.

“All countries are doing this. In general, it’s a short list of five to ten main topics that the agency needs to invest in, but without giving up that opportunity that the independent researcher has to have a good idea and want to test the good idea” , says the experienced hematologist.

When visiting the Gustave Roussy hospital, the president of FAPESP highlighted the importance of research against cancer. “It is one of the most important topics today when it comes to health in Brazil. Cancer mortality is today one of the most important, if not the most important. And cancer treatment requires continuous progress, and research can contribute to that. In the state of São Paulo there are many entities that can work on common projects, that is, those that are developed at the same time by researchers in France and São Paulo”, he concludes.