Long-term interaction

Research on new therapies for treatment of leishmaniosis show how successful scientific cooperation between Brazil and the United Kingdom can be

By Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – Studies on new therapies for leishmaniosis were identified as one of the possible areas of common interest for cooperation between scientists in Brazil and the United Kingdom during the UK-Brazil Tropical Medicine Workshop, which ended Tuesday February 22 in São Paulo.

Based on existing experience with collaboration in studies on leishmaniosis between the two countries, some participants at the event stated that international scientific cooperation is more fruitful when it is based on long term relationships and mutual trust.

The two-day event promoted by FAPESP and the British Consulate in São Paulo brought together 30 scientists from Brazil and the United Kingdom with the objective of incrementing partnerships between the two countries for research on tropical diseases. An initiative of the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS), the workshop integrates the Brazil-UK Partnership in Science and Innovation.

Aside from identifying mutual areas of interest for research on illnesses such as leishmaniosis, malaria, esquistossomosis and Chagas disease, the event was also aimed at discussing financing mechanisms for the partnerships.

During the event, Silvia Uliana, professor at the Universidade de São Paulo’s Biomedical Science Institute’s Parasitology Department, presented a study currently underway at her laboratory related to new therapies for leishmaniosis.

Uliana’s group tested the application of Tamoxifen, a medication widely used in the treatment of breast cancer, for leishmaniosis. The drug was tested together with others used against Leishmania in different animal models in many different applications. The preliminary results are promising.

“The advantage to adapting the use of a medication already on the market is that we already know it is safe to use. In cancer treatment, there are side effects, but the drug is taken continually for five years. In treatment of leishmaniosis, it’s a different situation because the medication is taken for only a few weeks,” said Uliana in a conversation with Agência FAPESP.

Scientists still don’t know, however, if Tamoxifen can be used in human patients. Even though the phase 1 clinical tests could be dismissed because the medication has already been approved for use in humans against cancer, phase 2 clinical testing must still be done. “Aside from this, even though the medicine has proven effective in killing Leishmania, we still don’t understand how it does it. We must still study its mechanism of action,” she says.

Understanding the mechanism of action is fundamental, because Tamoxifen is an antagonist of estrogen receptors and therefore may be limited in the treatment of children or fertile women.
“Over the long term, studies on the mechanism of action could help us understand how to modify the Tamoxifen molecule so it doesn’t interact with the estrogen receptors but is still effective against Leishmania,” stated the researcher.

It is in this context that collaboration with scientists from the UK could bring important advances. “We still aren’t working together specifically on Tamoxifen chemotherapy, but our laboratory has many other studies underway together with British colleagues,” says Uliana. 

The researcher completed her post-doctorate degree in 1995 and1996 in the laboratory led by Deborah Smith—another leishmaniosis specialist participating in the workshop—at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, in London, with FAPESP funding. Since then, the researchers develop scientific interaction. Smith is currently at York University, also in the UK.

“The work to be done in understanding Tamoxifen’s mechanism of action against Leishmania will certainly involve collaboration with the British group. Their research infrastructure will be important for certain techniques that we will use in carrying out the study,” says Uliana.

Long term work and mutual trust

According to Smith, long term partnerships with Brazilian scientists—especially those from São Paulo—have been fundamental in developing her research. “Our focus in molecular and cellular sciences is the leishmaniosis study with the interest of developing new therapy. To do this, we need to collaborate with our colleagues in endemic countries, where there is access to new knowledge about new lineages and specificities that we don’t have in the UK, where there is no leishmaniosis,” Smith told Agência FAPESP.

According to her, the partnership with Uliana is a success story for future partnerships between scientists from the two countries. The two researchers have published many articles together since they met in 1995.
“It is especially important to have good contacts so that long term relationships can be established and work can be continual. In the case of Silvia, we meet regularly when I am in Brazil. In the future, this is the type of relationship I want to grow,” affirmed Smith.

A central aspect of the partnership, according to her, is the exchange of students between the two countries, which have different needs for training. “The doors of my lab at York are open to Brazilian students that need a specific sort of training. I know that my students will also be well received in São Paulo to perform a certain type of work, such as testing their projects in the field,” she affirmed.

Another example of good cooperative research relationships according to Smith is her connection with the team of Angela Kaysel Cruz, professor at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology at the Riberão Preto Medical School (FRMP), which is part of USP.

Cruz works with genetics of Leishmania  and coordinates a Thematic Project on the subject, funded by FAPESP. “We both work on development of the Leishmania genome project. We met many years ago and in 1994 had our first planning meeting, in Rio de Janeiro. Today, we work together and meet often. Over time, we have managed to establish a relationship based on mutual trust, which is fundamental for scientific advancement in this sort of study,” said Smith.