Rules for the Young Researcher Award will change in this years edition

Evaluation criteria remain unaltered Among them, the relevance of the theme, theoretic consistency and the applied methodology

The Young Researcher Award will have news in 2016. The youngsters, who until now ran against each other, now will be split into 4 different categories: graduation, masters, doctorate and post-doctorate. Besides this, three awars will be given for each category: the winners will be granted R$1,000.00, while the second and third places will receive special mentions.

At all, there will be 12 awards. In the prior editions, there were only five, where the three first places received cash values (R$ 1,000; R$ 500; R$ 250, respectively) and the fourth and fifth places received speical mentions.

The presentantion, on the other hand, only change regarding the first places for each category. The three first places for each category in poster presentations, in the morning, will be shifted to oral presentations in the afternoon, explained Doctor Júlio Croda, coordinator of the Awards evaluation committee.

The evaluation criteria also remain unaltered. Among them, the relevance of the theme, theoretical consistency and the applied methodology.

The selected papers will be presented and awarded during the Congress of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine (MEDTROP 2016), to be held from August 21 to 24 in Maceió, Alagoas.

The goal of the initiative is to acknowledge the importance of the works developed by young researchers for science, as well as stimulating the continuity of their works in the Tropical Medicine field. The first year (2014), had 18 registered students, from which five were awarded. The next year, the number of registered students raised to 59, again, awarding 5 young researchers.

Winners

A research about the impact of malaria among pregnant women, in 2014, and another seeking a preventive vaccine against leishmaniasis for dogs, last year, were the great winners of the two last editions of the Young Researcher Award.

The first winning study was a thesis conducted by doctorate student Jamille Dombrowski. The researcher, conducted at the São Paulo University, evaluates the effects Plasmodium types – malaria causing protozoa – have on pregnant women living in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre State.

The second work, a masters dissertation developed at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), studies a protein that could be basis for a future preventive vaccine against canine visceral leishmaniasis. The research was conducted by the now doctorate student Vivian Tamietti Martins.

Young tropicalists around the world

Other students who ranked the first places have also received recognition for their works – including in the international level.

This is the case of doctorate student Mariana Kikuti, third place in the 2014 edition of the award. Her work – about different risk areas for dengue within the same community in social vunerability situation – was published in the prestigious journal PLOS – Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD). Besides this, Kikuti has firmed a partnership with Stanford University, from the United States, to continue her research.…