Emmanuel Dias and Trypanosoma cruzi discovery: two centenaries to celebrate - Editorial

Abstract

Emmanuel Dias and Trypanosoma cruzi discovery: two centenaries to celebrate-Editorial When Carlos Chagas was discovering the parasite Trypanosoma (Schizotrypanum) cruzi in 1908, one of the more important researchers on Chagas disease, Emmanuel Dias, was borning. Emmanuel Dias was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was the son of Ezequiel Caetano Dias, a distinguished colleague of Carlos Chagas, and Maria Cândida Fonseca Dias. Ezequiel Dias was another brilliant scientist, who worked with his brother-in-law Oswaldo Gonçalves Cruz from the opening of Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, the pioneering experimental medicine institution in Latin America that had been founded in the early 1900's in Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro. At that time, Carlos Chagas was also working in Manguinhos, and was involved with malaria research and control. In 1907, Oswaldo Cruz placed Chagas in charge of malaria control in the Lassance region, in the state of Minas Gerais, where this parasitic disease was causing major difficulties for the construction of the Central do Brasil Railway. Following the tradition of his Institute, in parallel with his main work, Chagas also studied the fauna of Lassance, and discovered a new trypanosome (T. minasense), in 1908, that was parasitizing the black tufted marmoset Happale penicillata (= Callithrix penicillata). Around the same time, Chagas discovered another flagellate, that he named Schizotrypanum cruzi (= Trypanosoma cruzi) in the gut of a hematophagous bug of the region, the Conorrhinus megistus (= Panstrongylus megistus). Some months later, after hard laboratory labor concerning the life cycles of T. cruzi in the vector and small mammals in Manguinhos, Chagas returned to Lassance and found his first human case of a new disease, which was later called "Chagas disease" by Miguel Couto, the President of the Brazilian Academy of Medicine. Emmanuel Dias lost his father at the age of 14, a fact that strongly reinforced his determination to follow Ezequiel Dias' career. In Rio de Janeiro, Emmanuel Dias began his Medicine Course in 1927, at the same National Medicine School where Ezequiel Dias, Carlos Chagas, and Oswaldo Cruz had also studied some decades before. During the second year at the University, Emmanuel Dias started a voluntary fellowship with his godfather, Carlos Chagas, at Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, where he was advised to study the biology of T. cruzi in its invertebrate and vertebrate hosts. Emmanuel Dias very quickly became one of the most important Chagas disciples and never forgot one of his Mentor's major obsessions: "It is absolutely mandatory to put an end with this lamentable disease!" His 1932 thesis, entitled "Studies about the Schizotrypanum cruzi", is still considered to be a salient scientific reference today. He