Brazil launches an innovative program to develop the National Institutes for Science and Technology (INCTs): the INCT for Translational Medicine

Abstract

The Brazilian System of Science and Technology has launched the National Institutes for Science and Technology which are intended as nation-wide networks of research. This initiative has been coordinated by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnoló-gico (CNPq); the Institutes were officially launched in November 2008. The budget for this initiative is about US$260 million over the next five years. The Institutes will occupy a strategic position in the country and will be run in partnership with six State-run foundations for research support, in a joint effort with the Ministry of Health and Education, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Petrobras, and the National Bank for Social and Economic Development (BNDES).The INCT for Translational Medicine represents perhaps a unique opportunity in the field of health-related research, since it offers a potential means of applying the findings obtained in basic research to everyday healthcare. The group awarded with the INCT-TM has become accustomed to the concept of translational research in its efforts to apply the advances made in the field of growth factors research to applications in psychiatry and neurology. In fact, the free enterprise sector has been faster than the Academia in using translational research to boost the development of products and patents. In this particular field, the Brazilian structure for research development is rather poor: while 2% of the science produced in the world comes from Brazil, only 0.1% of the total patents are filed by Brazilian researchers, a 20-fold gap. The INCT-TM has been designed to fill this gap within the area of health-related research. It was conceived as the collaborative effort of six centers: UFRGS, USP-RP, UFRJ, PUC-RS, UNESC and a core facility in which over 70 researchers and 150 students participate directly. The INCT-TM also has a wide interaction with several Brazilian and international research groups from different countries such as Canada, the UK, the USA and Spain.Thus, we expect that the results of the ongoing and future studies of the INCT-TM will help Brazilian science to develop a translational edge, with greater attention paid to the potential benefits of using new findings from basic science as a means to achieve more effective healthcare.

Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Medicina Translacional (INCT-TM): abordagens metodológicas

“…The INCT-TM group's recent history suggests that basic research applied towards medicine represents not only an opportunity to generate new products and patents, but also a chance to obtain international funding. 40 The main focus of this group is the development of a more applicable interface between basic research and its use in medicine. With this purpose in mind, it has joined six different groups that have also shaped their lines of research around this goal, focusing primarily on translating the data obtained from in vitro and in vivo models to its clinical counterparts in the areas of psychiatry, neurology, oncology and inflammation/rheumatology.…”

Marcadores periféricos e a fisiopatologia do transtorno bipolar

“…Será dado um enfoque especial a dados provenientes de uma experiência brasileira de colaboração que vem progressivamente obtendo resultados em relação à toxicidade sistêmica nos últimos anos 25,26 . Assim, tentaremos articular uma visão coerente do conhecimento atual do campo.…”