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Serological tests have an important and irreplaceable role in the diagnosis of infectious diseases, both for individual patients and society. They indirectly identify the causative pathogen through the capture of antibodies, which contrasts with the direct detection by antigen and molecular biology tests that are also limited to active infections. Within point-of-care platforms, serodiagnostic assays can support immediate decisions in patient care and contain the spread of disease as they do not require highly trained personnel or dedicated infrastructure. By employing serodiagnosis, health officials can proactively respond and eliminate emerging health risks. Larger sample numbers can be screened in other formats for surveillance as well as securing donated blood supplies. Furthermore, an assay can be designed to detect any immunoglobulin from IgM to IgG and its subclasses, to IgA and IgE. However, most serological assays employ natural proteins as the defining antibody-capturing reagent, which compromises their performance by limiting the two critical parameters of a serodiagnostic test: specificity and sensitivity. To surpass this natural limitation, we have repurposed the β-barrel of fluorescent proteins to receive epitope sequences that dependably produce high-performing designer immunological reagents. Consequently, serodiagnosis can be conducted more accurately at a lower cost.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic represents an enormous challenge to all countries, regardless of their development status. The manipulation of its etiologic agent SARS-CoV-2 requires a biosafety containment level 3 laboratories (BSL-3) to understand virus biology and in vivo pathogenesis as well as the translation of new knowledge into the preclinical development of vaccines and antivirals. As such, BSL-3 facilities should be considered an integral part of any public health response to emerging infectious disease prevention, control and management. Differently from BSL-2, BSL-3 units vary considerably along the range from industrialized to the least developed countries. Innovative Developing Countries (IDCs) such as Brazil, which excelled at controlling the 2015–2017 Zika epidemic, had to face a serious flaw in its disease control and prevention structure: the scarcity and uneven geographic distribution of its BSL-3 facilities, including those for preclinical animal experimentation.

Countries have traditionally been split into two major groups: developed or industrialized ("the North") and developing or underdeveloped ("the South"). Several authors and organizations have challenged this classification to recognize countries that have reached an intermediate stage of social and economic development. As proposed by Morel and collaborators in 2005, the concept of Innovative Developing Countries (IDCs) defines a group of nations with impactful scientific programs. Here, IDCs are reexamined by a variety of metrics to highlight their role in health innovation through research and development (R&D) programs on neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that also positively impact epidemic preparedness.To address the global changes due to expanding globalization we updated the original indicator of the number of USPTO patents deposited by individual countries per GDP and per capita to the number of international patents applications, related to applicant residence and deposited under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) per GNI (or GDP) and per capita. A comparison of the originally described ranking of top innovative countries to those in the present study revealed new members that updated the list of IDCs and showed a prominent role now played by China. Analyzing scientific publications in international journals since the introduction of the IDC concept in 2005 we found that IDCs do prioritize Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) as an area of research. Finally we investigated the role of IDCs in two major public health emergencies between 2012 and 2016, the outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa and Zika in South America. An analysis of the co-authorship country networks demonstrated an important role for IDC infrastructure and personnel in the prevention and control of these epidemics.Different techniques can be used to evaluate and measure innovative performance of countries. Country rankings published by traditional indexes, such as the Bloomberg Innovation Index (BII) and the Global Innovation Index (GII), only include high income economies among the top 20 performers. This is in sharp contrast to our approach, which identified 8-9 IDCs among the first 25 with China occupying the top position. Through an analysis of the pros and cons of the different methodologies, the IDC concept challenges more conventional approaches to address and estimate the innovative capacity of countries.

This paper examines how institutions organize and manage the research and development (R&D) infrastructure and facilities required to stimulate innovation and convert research into practical applications (‘translational research’). We have focused our analysis on universities and biomedical institutions that have created dedicated facilities to optimize this type of activity either working in isolation or in partnership with the industrial sector. We have detected three main types of infrastructure arrangements: multi-user equipment, corefacilities and technological platforms. Although most of the institutions share a common vision and definition for the first two categories, we have identified different perceptions on the nature, role and mission of existing, self denominated ‘technological platforms’. A review of these structures has led us to propose a unifying categorization and nomenclature system of these critical components of health innovation systems. Based on this conceptual framework we have analyzed the evolution of organizational R&D structures and initiatives of Fiocruz and developed a web-based system for the strategic planning, implementation and management of its network of translational research facilities located in several cities in Brazil. This approach may prove useful for organizations facing similar transitions and challenges

INTRODUCTION: New tools and approaches are necessary to facilitate public policy planning and foster the management of innovation in countries' public health systems. To this end, an understanding of the integrated way in which the various actors who produce scientific knowledge and inventions in technological areas of interest operate, where they are located and how they relate to one another is of great relevance. Tuberculosis has been chosen as a model for the present study as it is a current challenge for Brazilian research and innovation. METHODOLOGY: Publications about tuberculosis written by Brazilian authors were accessed from international databases, analyzed, processed with text searching tools and networks of coauthors were constructed and visualized. Patent applications about tuberculosis in Brazil were retrieved from the Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and the European Patent Office databases, through the use of International Patent Classification and keywords and then categorized and analyzed. RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: Brazilian authorship of articles about tuberculosis jumped from 1% in 1995 to 5% in 2010. Article production and patent filings of national origin have been concentrated in public universities and research institutions while the participation of private industry in the filing of Brazilian patents has remained limited. The goals of national patenting efforts have still not been reached, as up to the present none of the applications filed have been granted a patent. The analysis of all this data about TB publishing and patents clearly demonstrates the importance of maintaining the continuity of Brazil's production development policies as well as government support for infrastructure projects to be employed in transforming the potential of research. This policy, which already exists for the promotion of new products and processes that, in addition to bringing diverse economic benefits to the country, will also contribute to effective dealing with public health problems affecting Brazil and the World.

BACKGROUND: New approaches and tools were needed to support the strategic planning, implementation and management of a Program launched by the Brazilian Government to fund research, development and capacity building on neglected tropical diseases with strong focus on the North, Northeast and Center-West regions of the country where these diseases are prevalent. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Based on demographic, epidemiological and burden of disease data, seven diseases were selected by the Ministry of Health as targets of the initiative. Publications on these diseases by Brazilian researchers were retrieved from international databases, analyzed and processed with text-mining tools in order to standardize author- and institution's names and addresses. Co-authorship networks based on these publications were assembled, visualized and analyzed with social network analysis software packages. Network visualization and analysis generated new information, allowing better design and strategic planning of the Program, enabling decision makers to characterize network components by area of work, identify institutions as well as authors playing major roles as central hubs or located at critical network cut-points and readily detect authors or institutions participating in large international scientific collaborating networks. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Traditional criteria used to monitor and evaluate research proposals or R&D Programs, such as researchers' productivity and impact factor of scientific publications, are of limited value when addressing research areas of low productivity or involving institutions from endemic regions where human resources are limited. Network analysis was found to generate new and valuable information relevant to the strategic planning, implementation and monitoring of the Program. It afforded a more proactive role of the funding agencies in relation to public health and equity goals, to scientific capacity building objectives and a more consistent engagement of institutions and authors from endemic regions based on innovative criteria and parameters anchored on objective scientific data.

This review does not intend to convey detailed experimental or bibliographic data. Instead, it expresses the informal authors’ personal views on topics that range from basic research on antigens and experimental models for Trypanosoma cruzi infection to vaccine prospects and vaccine production. The review also includes general aspects of Chagas’ disease control and international and national policies on the subject. The authors contributed equally to the paper.

OBJETIVO Rever relação conceitual entre telessaúde e pesquisa translacional. MÉTODOS Realizou-se busca bibliográfica sobre telessaúde nas bases Scopus, Cochrane BVS, Lilacs e Medline com a finalidade de encontrar experiências de telessaúde conjugadas com a discussão da pesquisa translacional em saúde. A busca recuperou oito estudos, que basearam a análise dos modelos das cinco etapas da pesquisa translacional com os múltiplos fluxos de política pública no contexto brasileiro da telessaúde. Esses modelos foram aplicados às atividades de telessaúde da Rede de Bancos de Leite Humano, na Rede Universitária de Telemedicina. RESULTADOS O ciclo da pesquisa translacional do leite humano coletado, armazenado e distribuído apresentou iniciativas de telessaúde integradas, tais como videoconferências, softwares e portais de síntese do conhecimento, compondo elementos de um ecossistema de informação, mediado por tecnologias da informação e comunicação no sistema de saúde. CONCLUSÕES A telessaúde deve ser compreendida como conjunto de atividades em rede mediadas por computação e que promovem a translação do conhecimento entre pesquisa e serviços de saúde.

Dados sobre a produção cientifica brasileira de circulação internacional catalogada pelo Institute for Scientific Information podem ser recuperados por um perfil de busca especial do serviço de disseminação seletiva de informação ASCA daquela instituição e enviados na forma de listagens em fita magnética. Os autores desenvolveram programas para o processamento direto por computador das informações contidas nas fitas e que geram automaticamente um catálogo multiindexado sobre nossa produção científica. Esse catálogo multiindexado, que poderá vir a ser editado anualmente na forma de livro e na forma de fita magnética, recebeu o nome de C.I.E.N.C.I.A./BRASIL (Catálogo Indexado por Endereços e Nomes de Cientistas e Instituições e por Periódico e Assunto). São discutidas as potencialidades e características desse novo instrumento de análise, acompanhamento e divulgação de nossa produção cientifica de circulação internacional. Abstract Data about the scientific publications of Brazilian authors indexed by the Institute for Scientific Information can be retrieved by a special search profile of its ASCA service of selective dissemination of information and sent in the form of magnetic tapes. Computer programs were developed by the authors to process directly the information on the tapes in order to generate a multi-indexed catalog about our scientificproduction. This index, which could be publishedon a yearly basis, has received the name of C.I.E.N.C.I.A./BRASIL ( = S.C.I.E.N.C.E./BRAZIL;Index Arranged by Addresses and Names of Scientists and Institutions as well as by Journals and Subject). The characteristics of this index and its use for the analysis, follow-up and divulgation of Brazilian science are discussed.

Neste trabalho a produção cientifica brasileira é analisada quantitativamente em termos de autores de trabalhos científicos publicados em revistas indexadas pelo ISI. Estuda-se a evolução desta produção e a relação produção versus população comparativamente a diversos países. Para o ano de 1974, analisa-se a distribuição dos autores por região geográfica, por estado e por instituição, e também a produtividade/professor das diversas instituições de ensino superior. Os autores concluem discutindo a importância da organização de um Banco de Dados sobre a produção científica brasileira, montado a partir do arquivo do ISI, e propõe um modo eficiente de organização deste Banco. Descritores Indicadores Científicos. Comunicação Científica. Produção Científica. Análise Qualitativa. Análise Quantitativa. Ciência da Ciência. Abstract In this article the scientific production of Brazilis studied in terms of the number of authors publishings cientific articles in the journals covered by ISI.The evolution of this production as well as the relation nº of authors versus population is analysedin comparison to different countries. The distribution of the authors who published articles in 1974 amonggeographic regions, states and institutions, as wellas the parameter nº of authors/nº of professorsin different universities are also investigated. The authors point out to the importance of organizing a Data Bank about Brazil's scientific production from ISI's files, and propose an efficient way towards this goal.