News


Best PhD Thesis Award in Veterinary Medicine in Brazil was given to Dr Cristina Zimpel by CAPES

 


 Research Topic at Frontiers, 2021

Dr Ana Guimarães is a guest-editor, along with Dr Adrian Allen and Dr Marian Price-Carter, in a research topic at Frontiers in Microbiology and Frontiers in Genetics on the Evolution and Genomics of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. Submissions deadline is July 2021.

About the Research Topic

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) bacteria, is a devastating, chronic infectious disease of humankind, killing more than any other pathogen, and adding 10 million cases annually. Globally, livestock and wildlife are also significantly affected, leading to impacts as diverse as food insecurity, economic losses and threats to the conservation status of important fauna. In addition, a neglected risk of zoonotic transmission of animal TB to humans hampers disease eradication, making a cogent argument for a ‘One-Health’ approach. The MTBC is composed of 11 species/ecotypes which evolve clonally. Their genomes are highly similar; homologous regions are >99.99% identical, horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is absent, and gene synteny is predominantly conserved. This homology facilitates studies on population structure and epidemiology, but has proven to be a challenge for the identification of genetic mechanisms underpinning distinct phenotypes like host tropism, virulence, transmissibility, and propensity to acquire drug resistance.

In the absence of HGT, members of MTBC evolve mostly through single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), short indels, large deletions, transposition of insertion sequence (IS) elements, and duplication of a few paralogous gene families. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has greatly improved our ability to study TB epidemics. In particular, WGS-based SNP detection has served as the primary basis for evaluating MTBC population structure, evolution, transmission, and antibiotic resistance. However, many challenges remain in our use of WGS to further understand MTBC biology, including: i)
standardization of bioinformatic pipelines for genomic epidemiology of all MTBC species and second-line antibiotic resistance detection in M. tuberculosis; (ii) the role of repetitive genomic areas, indels, and IS elements in MTBC evolution, (iii) the identification of molecular mechanisms driving the distinct phenotypes observed among MTBC lineages; and (iv) the evolutionary history of non-M. tuberculosis species of MTBC. Recent work has also shown that the full ecological and genetic diversity of MTBC is underestimated, warranting studies in less well-sampled locales to determine a more representative MTBC evolutionary history. Therefore, the goal of this research topic is to further decipher the evolution of the MTBC and to fill the gaps in our knowledge around the application of genomics to TB disease control.

This Research Topic may include studies that investigate and discuss, but are not limited to, the following:

• The evolution, genetic diversity, population structure and phylogeography of MTBC lineages and species.
• The functional genetic underpinnings of distinct MTBC phenotypes.
• The role of repetitive genomic regions, indels, and IS elements in the evolution of MTBC.
• Intra-host genetic diversity of MTBC and its impact on disease development, contact tracing, and antibiotic resistance.
• WGS-based outbreak tracing and antibiotic resistance detection.
• New bioinformatic tools and sequencing techniques (e.g. new bioinformatic tools or studies addressing technical challenges related to outbreak racing, antibiotic resistance detection and evolution studies of MTBC, direct sequencing from clinical or environmental samples).

The Topic welcomes original research, reviews, mini-reviews and perspectives.


Our collaborations with coronavirus vaccine development depicted at ICB, USP news.


With the animal model of coronavirus developed at LaPAM, we tested the efficacy of an equine serum against the virus. This serum was produced by Butantan Institute and is now on clinical trials. Agência FAPESP published the news.


Women’s day interview with Dr Ana Guimaraes at Agora São Paulo, Folha de São Paulo

Trabalho de mulheres cientistas ganha destaque na pandemia


Student presentations in 2020 conferences

Naila Soler Camargo and Cristina Kraemer Zimpel, both PhD students at LaPAM, had their abstracts accepted for oral presentation in two important conferences of TB (human and bovine TB). We are very proud of them and congratulate all students on their continuous hard work!

Keystone Symposium – Tuberculosis: Science aimed at ending the epidemic.
Virtual Meeting – December, 2020.
Soler-Camargo, N. et al. (2020). Short talk: Pseudogenization as source of genetic variability to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex.

 

M. bovis 2020 | Galway, Ireland (postpone to 2021 due to the pandemic)
Zimpel et al. (2020). Global distribution and evolution of Mycobacterium bovis lineages.

 

 


Quotations at Forbes Magazine, 2020

Dr Ana Guimaraes was quoted in this article from Dr Madhukar Pai at Forbes Magazine about How Prestige Journals Remain Elite, Exclusive And Exclusionary. The article highlights how the new open access option of Nature journals in the value of up to €9,500 (nearly US $11,400) accentuates the bias and the exclusion of researchers from low and middle income countries.

“In Brazil, €9,500 is one quarter of the maximum funding allowed in basic research grants offered by our state or the federal government,” said Ana Marcia de Sá Guimarães, an assistant professor at the University of São Paulo. “In our scarce conditions, having to pay this amount is a socially unjust use of taxpayer money. How can I tell a tuberculosis patient participating in my study that I will pay more than 100 times her/his treatment to publish the study results? Or how can I tell an aspiring scientist that I cannot pay two years of her fellowship because we published in Nature? Sadly, this is not how I have envisioned the path towards a more inclusive and global research environment.” she added.

 


Dr Ana Guimaraes was quoted in this article from Dr Madhukar Pai at Forbes Magazine about the published report Health in their hands: testing and women’s empowerment mean better health for all from three non-profit global health organizations, Women in Global Health, the Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics (FIND), and Women Political Leaders.

“The report calls for research to improve our understanding of women’s access to testing. Ana Marcia de Sá Guimarães, an Assistant Professor of Bacteriology at the University of São Paulo, agrees. “Gender inequality, health illiteracy and sexist stigma are main impediments of health access in Brazil, particularly with economically disadvantaged women, sex workers, and LGBTQ+. Identification of such challenges surrounding diagnostic testing can serve as basis for the design of gender-specific health policies,” she said.”


Women scientists at the frontline of COVID-19, 2020

Dr Guimarães was depicted in an article from the Campus Journal, University of São Paulo, about women leading research projects on SARS-CoV-2.


EPISaúde in the news, 2020

EPISaúde Initiative, one of LaPAM’s actions during COVID-19 pandemic, have been depicted in several media outlets

Agência FAPESP

Jornal da USP

TV Brasil

Interview starts at 5m15sec.

 


Our research project depicted by Morris Animal Foundation

Click Here for the news“Tuberculosis is certainly one of the most devastating infectious diseases of wild animals and human beings,” said Dr. Ana Marcia Guimarães, a Morris Animal Foundation-funded wildlife tuberculosis researcher from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. “The disease is hard to diagnose and treat. And, once present in certain animal populations, it is very difficult to eliminate.”

“Our research is focused on trying to understand how the different pathogen species of tuberculosis are able to adapt to the various affected hosts, and use this knowledge to rationally build therapeutic and preventive interventions,” said Dr. Guimarães.


The world without science – an animation of our extension project “Young Bioscientist”

Click on Jornal da USP for the news (in portuguese)

Portuguese version

English version