From October 3rd to the 23rd, Prof. Dr. Marluce Vilela, coordinator of the Laboratory of Immunology Center for Investigation in Pediatrics (CIPED) form School of Medical Sciences, will be hosting three 6th year medical students from the Sapienza University of Rome, in Italy: Ega Qeva is from Pogradec, Albania; Gabriella Salvia is from Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, Italy; and Giorgio Spano is from Pontirolo Nuovo, Lombardy, Italy. The students will participate in an internship program and a training program while in Brazil. They will visit outpatient clinics and wards at the University of Campinas - School of Medical Science (Hospital de Clínicas) to observe and lean about the “physician-patient” relationship. Under the guidance of a tutor doctor students will be able to experience a doctor’s routine while learning about the most common illnesses for each of the clinics and wards being observed.

In the laboratory, students will learn about the main molecular and cellular techniques (immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry) used in biomedical research. While observing an experiment called reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), the students will follow the total RNA extraction from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) used to quantify genes (mRNA) and microRNA (miRNA). The experiments that will be observed are part of the PhD project of Lia Marega, who is researching the mutational consequences at the level of molecular pathomechanisms in patients with primary immunodeficiencies. Dr. Marcelo Teocchi, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Laboratory of Immunology and organizer of the program, will tutor the three visiting students during the development of the experiments. Prof. Dr. Marluce Vilela will coordinate all activities taking place during the internship program and in the laboratory.