Historical Aspects of the Establishment of the Research Network on Theranostics and Nanobiotechnology
The two Centers of Excellence; Nanobiotechnology and Immunoparasitology, as well as the Nanobiotec-Brazil Network (NANOS) form the basis of the National Institute of Science & Technology in Theranostics and Nanobiotechnology (NIST-TeraNano), which is headquartered at the Laboratory of Nanobiotechnology (UFU) under the coordination of Prof. Dr. Luiz Ricardo Goulart. This research network was structured in 2008 with funding from FINEP, CAPES, CNPq and FAPEMIG funding agencies, and represented the formalization of an existing scientific association between the UFU with nine Brazilian public institutions (UNICAMP, UFTM, UFMG, UFV, UNIRIO, UFMA, UFPA, UFF and INCA), three national companies (Valleé, BioGenetics and Heart Institute of Triangulo Mineiro) and one international company (Nano3D Biosciences). The NANOS Network reached international excellence in the discovery of new biological targets for the control of infectious and chronic diseases and in the development strategies of nanotechnology for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. In 2013, the research network that proposes this future NIST-TeraNano incorporated five (5) additional institutions: UFPB, UFBA, UFG, UFAL, and IPEN, totaling 12 institutions (1 from the North, 4 from the Northeast, one from Midwest, and one 6 from the southeast regions), with the exclusion of UFV and UFF due to their association with other research groups with common goals.
The NANOS network in the past six years (2008-2014) has made several discoveries, including dozens of new molecular markers for various diseases arising from combinatorial libraries of peptides, antibodies and nucleic acids, namely, sepsis, tuberculosis, HTLV-1/2, Chlamydia, neurocysticercosis, Strongyloidiasis, coccidioidomycosis, Criptococcosis, Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Mouth Cancer, Thyroid Cancer, Chagas, Dengue, Leishmaniasis, Brucellosis, Anaplasmosis, Leprosy, Malaria and Staphylococcus aureus. 16 postdocs, 58 doctors, 73 masters, 61 undergrads (Scientific Initiation) were formed. Nine (9) thematic groups were subdivided according to specific integration between associated institutions, with research topics that ranged from cancer to infectious diseases, encompassing biotechnology and nanotechnology applied to health, which resulted in over 140 high-impact publications, 16 patents, more than 35 national and international scientific technical missions, and the organization of three international and two national meetings. The final integration of the group occurred with joint activities in a national event (I Workshop on Nanobiotechnology of the NANOS Network) followed by the International Conference of USA and Brazil Cooperation on Integrated Biological Networks Driving Disease Outcomes (http://www.ingeb.ufu.br/sites/ingeb.ufu.br/Conference/home.html), both in 2012, which promoted and expanded this research network, culminating with the formalization of several international partnerships, including the University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA, Infectious Disease Reserarch Institute (Seattle, WA, USA), Leiden University Medical Center (Leiden, Netherlands) and University of Salzburg, Austria (http://health.universityofcalifornia.edu/2012/08/28/uc-davis-led-confere...).
