Silvia Dias de Oliveira studied findings of investigations involving South African researchers
Photo: Personal archive
School of Health and Life Sciences professor Dr Silvia Dias de Oliveira went on a mission to the University of Pretoria, in South Africa, on PUCRS-PrInt. This mission served to discuss the findings of research carried out by Rodney Owuso-darko, a student in the Graduate Program in Cellular and Molecular Biology, who is advised by Silvia and the South African researcher Elna Buys. The visit also served to discuss new projects in cooperation, as both institutions have had a solid partnership since 2014.
A cooperation agreement between the institutions is expected to take effect soon. In addition to that, new collaborative projects are expected to be submitted to Brazilian and South African development agencies. “The visit to the institution was extremely important for us to continue and expand the collaboration with the University of Pretoria, as we were able to work on and submit scientific articles. We also discussed academic mobility opportunities for our doctoral students, ” Silvia says.
The partnership between PUCRS and the South African institution has been around since 2014, when the PUCRS professor joined the project Validating procedures for the measurement of heat resistant spoilage and pathogenic bacteria in milk, to provide a scientific and technical basis for future developments in the management of food safety in South Africa, India and Brazil, coordinated by South African researcher Elna Maria Buys in partnership with Indian researcher Sunita Grove.
The first workshop scheduled for the project was held with Indian and African scholars as well as PUCRS researchers Dr Sílvia Dias and Dr Carlos Alexandre Sanchez Ferreira in Jan 2015, in South Africa. In Jan 2016, African researchers visited the PUCRS’ Laboratory of Immunology and Microbiology for three days. The doctoral dissertation of student Rodney Owuso-darko, titled Molecular characterization of Bacillus sporothermodurans in Ultra High Temperature (UHT) milk, defended in May 2019, was part of this project. In 2019, the first scientific article was published in partnership with the South African group.
On PUCRS-PrInt, Carmen is working on international cooperation research project Biopsychosocial aspects associated with an individual’s health in adult life, coordinated by Professor Tatiana Irigaray, and associated with the priority area Health in Human Development.
