On March 7, 2024, Academic Eliete Bouskela was inaugurated as President of the National Academy of Medicine, the first woman to hold this position since the institution's founding on June 30, 1829.

Prof. Monica Roberto Gadelha will be part of the 2024-2025 Biennium Board as 1st Secretary, becoming the second woman to join the new leadership.

Photo: National Academy of Medicine

The collaboration with the Cell Biology Research Group at IPATIMUP - Institute of Pathology and Molecular Immunology of the University of Porto (Porto, Portugal), along with the Experimental Endocrinology Research Group (LEEx) at ICB, UFRJ, began in 2013 with the technical-scientific visit of Prof. Leandro Miranda-Alves.

In 2014, a project was approved under the Science Without Borders Program/CAPES, titled "Impact of Endocrine Disruptors on zebrafish with BRAF600E mutation conditioned to the thyroid", coordinated in Brazil by Prof. Leandro Miranda-Alves, a permanent faculty member of the Endocrinology Postgraduate Program, and in Portugal by Prof. Paula Soares.

As the project progressed, partnerships for project development were also established with the Endocrine Physiology Laboratory Doris Rosenthal-LFEDR, led at the time by Prof. Denise Pires de Carvalho (IBCCF, UFRJ), with the group of Prof. Mário Vaisman (School of Medicine, UFRJ), Prof. Alice Dutra Violante (School of Medicine, UFRJ), and also with the group of Prof. Fernanda Vaisman (INCA), all permanent advisors of the Endocrinology Postgraduate Program.

In this regard, these longstanding partnerships have been highly successful, highlighted by:

1) Exchange and co-supervision of doctoral students;
2) Exchange of faculty/researchers;
3) Publications in high-impact international journals in the fields of Endocrinology, Oncobiology, and Environmental Toxicology;
4) Participation of Prof. Paula Soares in the I, II, and III Brazilian Meeting on Endocrine Disruptors (EBDE) organized by faculty members of the Endocrinology Postgraduate Program.

In 2023, with funding from the FNDCT, the National Institute of Endocrine Disruptors and Endocrine-Metabolic Repercussions, coordinated by Prof. Denise Pires de Carvalho and composed of researchers from UFRJ, UERJ, UFF, UFES, and UNIFESP, was granted financial resources from CNPq/FNDCT, CAPES, and FAPERJ, totaling an investment of approximately five million Brazilian reais to be allocated to consumables, operational costs, innovative extension scholarships, junior postdoctoral and visiting professorships.

Permanent advisors from the Endocrinology Postgraduate Program who are part of the new INCT include Prof. Leandro Miranda-Alves, Prof. Andrea Claudia Freitas Ferreira, and Prof. Glaecir Roseni Mundstock Dias, in addition to the proposer, Prof. Denise Pires de Carvalho.

In this project, we propose to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms of different Endocrine Disruptors (EDs) such as bisphenols, phthalates, tributyltin, pesticides, parabens, and triclosan in experimental rodent and zebrafish models, as well as to evaluate maternal-child health in the PIPA Project cohort. Thus, we aim to elucidate mechanisms involved in endocrine disruption and endocrine-metabolic repercussions, in order to alert regulatory agencies for the correct categorization of these substances, foster discussions on public policies to control their use, promote investments for their substitution, and through outreach actions, engage in education and awareness of the general population.