PPGIm is still located at ICS’ building, a unit with one of the best infrastructures among those at UFBA. Its administrative office has a physical space of 63m2, suiting to the needs of both faculty and student body. Other ICS facilities give support to the program activities, following an excellent infrastructure standard, particularly as regards to auditoriums equipped with multimedia resources, a videoconference room, as well as research labs.
Other units, where accredited professors work, equally dispose of adequate infrastructure for the activities developed by the Program. The labs whose members are part of PPGIm’s faculty (three at the University Hospital Professor Edgar Santos, ten at the Institute of Health Sciences, two at the School of Pharmacy and four at FIOCRUZ) have an area of approximately 2.800 m2.
Each integrating laboratory has all the necessary equipment to carry out the main techniques of Humoral and Cellular Immunology, of Molecular Biology, Cellular Biology and Biochemistry, that is, complete systems for electrophoresis for different gels, systems for size-exclusion chromatography in gel, ion exchange and high performance, microscopy, UV, reversed-phase, laminar flow cabinets, 3600rpm refrigerated centrifuges, precision and analytical balances, thermal cyclers, photo-documentation systems. Complete systems for study and micrography are available at the University Hospital Professor Edgar Santos, at the Institute of Health Sciences and at FIOCRUZ.
Electronic microscopy, although a property of UFBA, is at FIOCRUZ. Equipment for flow cytometry (scan and sorter) are available at ICS, and also at the University Hospital Professor Edgard Santos and at FIOCRUZ. Several automated systems for immunoassay (enzymes, fluorogenic and chemiluminescent) are at the Institute of Health Sciences. In 2008, the Immunology and Molecular Biology Lab had its research facility expanded with the construction of a new building in an area of about 650m2.
In addition to the new facilities for the development of projects in Cellular and Humoral Immunology, a new sector was created, with support from CNPq and CT-Infra, for research development and diagnosis on oncogenetics. Also, with the continuity of the CT-Infra (FINEP-UFBA) project, the research groups obtained a sequencer and a Tissue Array equipment. The collaboration with researchers from the Medicine and Public Health School of Bahia continues to enable the use of Microarray equipment, in projects involving genomics and proteomics.
Libraries
In 2011, UFBA restructured the Library System and installed the University Health Library, built with funding from CT-Infra and REUNI, located 300 meters from PPGIm’s academic department. Thus, the libraries from the Units were closed, including the Penildon Silva Library that operated at the Institute of Health Sciences. The new library has modern facilities distributed in four-story buildings, within the same distance from the University Hospital and other university units focused on the field. It has trained professionals, making it possible registering and cataloguing data from dissertations, theses and pedagogical material. Such services are connected with the main systems of bibliographic references. The amount of Immunology and related science books and some journals is significant. It operates twelve hours a day, and PPGIm members have free access to its services. The program also has a small library in its headquarters, which is basically used by professors and students, and is accessible to special students and professionals from the community that seek the Program facility for consulting. Besides the those spaces, it is worth mentioning that all professors and students have access to the Internet, since it is a Wi-Fi zone that allows access to online services offered by CAPES and other Institutions, access to the CAPES Journal Web Portal, ensuring quick searches for professors and students. FIOCRUZ also gives access to this web portal, and several other sources of bibliographical research.
Computer Resources
All labs related to PPGIm are computerized, with multiple Internet access points in its facilities, allowing inclusive access to CAPES Journal Web Portal. The maintenance and updating of the computers’ memory capacity at PPGIm’s academic department, in 2009, continued to facilitate the administrative activity, and the student support system, in addition to the activities developed by professors and students. Today, at the administration office, there are eight installed computers, four of them connected through a network, with two printers, making life easier for those working there, and at the Program coordination, as well as graduate students. The computer labs at the Institute of Health Sciences are still very useful to some Graduate courses, such as Biostatistics.
The daily use of this lab by graduate students that have acted with their advisors in Teaching Practice facilitated PPGIm’s performance in this activity. The various classrooms, auditoriums (five, with 60 seats each), and amphitheaters (four with 140 seats each) at the Institute of Health Sciences, all have air-conditioner, computers and multimedia projectors. Three of these rooms were specially prepared for conferences, and in one of them a teleconference system was installed, with support from CT-Infra. All UFBA units are connected through a fiber optic network, and the institution set up a modern service for disseminating information on the WEB, NUTS (Center for Teleconference in Health), which is of great value to activities like symposiums, workshops, conferences, lectures, and round tables discussing themes of interest.
The PPGIm international events can be broadcast in real time over the Internet, allowing an easy and wide circulation of technical-scientific knowledge, and better interaction aiming stronger international cooperation. The UFBA libraries are connected via intranet, and all of them are connected to the main systems of scientific information (Medline, Lilacs). Presently, several books are fully available, online, for free.
Further Information
Social Commitment
Some PPGIm researchers work with the community in two endemic areas: one in Corte de Pedra (transmission area of Leishmania brasiliensis), and another in Vila do Conde (transmission area of Schistosoma mansoni), providing support to the research lines for leishmaniasis Immunopathogenesis and schistosomiasis Immunology. A 10 hectares land in the town of Maragogipe is the site of projects on the Veterinary Immunology research line, involving immunity in diseases from small ruminants (all places mentioned are part of the State of Bahia’s countryside). In recent years, researchers connected to the Program were involved in several projects supported by FAPESB-CNPq, such as PRONEX and PRONEM, that allowed visits and assistance to leishmaniasis endemic areas at Vale do Jequiriça and Jequié, in Bahia, where hepatitis B and HTLV sero-epidemiology are studied, and vaccination and prevention campaigns will be carried out among the local population.
UFBA’s Integrated Diagnostic System* — www.sistemalaboratorial.ufba.br
Several PPGIm professors — advisors and research groups — work in different capacities in the integrated labs and outpatient care to UFBA’s diagnostic system.
Each sector has permanent professors, collaborators, visitors, and guests participating in projects, supervising or co-supervising graduate students and scholars related to research groups registered within PPGIm.
Labs related to PPGIm/ICS/UFBA
School of Pharmacy
- Immunology Research Lab * (Ajax Mercês Atta and Maria Luiza de Souza Atta)
- Laboratory of Mollecular Diagnosis of Hematologic Diseases * (Marilda Souza Gonçalves)
HUPES — University Hospital Professor Edgar Santos
- Infectology Research Lab — LAPI* (Carlos Roberto Brites Alves and Eduardo Martins Netto)
- Immunology Service — SIM* (Edgar Marcelino de Carvalho, Maria Ilma Araújo, Maria Olívia Ramos Bacellar, Albert Schrieffer, Lucas Pereira Carvalho, Luciana Cardoso)
- Immunogenetics Lab (Eliane Menezes and Lea Castelucci)
Institute of Health Sciences
- Immunopharmacology and Molecular Biology Lab — IMUNOBIO (Camila Alexandrina Viana de Figueiredo and Ryan dos Santos Costa)
- Allergy and Acarology Lab — LAA (Neuza Maria Alcantara Neves, Camila Alexandrina Viana de Figueirêdo)
- Immunology and Molecular Biology Lab — LABIMUNO* (Roberto Meyer, Ivana Nascimento, Songeli Menezes Freire, André Ney Menezes Freire, Lucas Pereira Carvalho, Kiyoko Abe-Sandes, Maura Romeo, Maria Betania Toralles, Herbert Santos and Geraldo Pedral).
- Neurochemistry and Cellular Biology Lab — LABNq* (Fátima Dias Costa, Silvia Lima Costa, Ramon El-Bachá, Victor Diogenes Amaral)
- Neuroimmunoendocrinology Lab (Gyselle Baccan)
FIOCRUZ — CPqGM
- Immunoregulation and Microbiology Lab — LIMI (Lain Pontes de Carvalho, Neuza Maria Alcantara Neves, Geraldo Gileno)
- Pathology and Molecular Biology Lab — LAPBM (Marilda Souza Gonçalves)
- Pathology and Biological Intervention Lab — LPBI (Theolis Barbosa Bessa)
- Experimental Pathology Lab — LAPE (Zilton de Araújo Andrade)
São Rafael Hospital/UFBA
- Biotechnology Center for Cellular Therapy — CBTC (Andrá Castro Lyra, Luiz Guilherme Lyra, Ricardo Ribeiro dos Santos, Milena Botelho Soares)
- Universidade Federal de Sergipe — Visiting Professors
- Molecular Biology Lab of UFS University Hospital (Amélia Maria Ribeiro de Jesus e Roque Pacheco de Almeida)
- Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais — Associate Professor
- Molecular and Cellular Genetics Lab (Vasco Ariston de Azevedo)
Escola de Medicina Veterinária
- Department of Animal Production (Thereza Cristina Borio dos Santos Calmon de Bittencourt)