Scientist Stories: Lucio Freitas, Infectious Diseases and Drug Screening

So maybe you can begin already to start to talk. I mean, to, you know, let's wait a little bit until we get everybody here. So I don't know if everybody was yesterday on the webinar. So you have now a great opportunity, guys, a great opportunity now to build this consortia and trying to make this consortia work here in Latin America, because, you know, Latin America have many, many challenges. I mean, I don't need to tell you guys that. How it's complicated to get finance support. I mean, how to get something sustainable for something for midterm, long-term. So how can you think together, I mean, to overcome these problems, you know? So let's make this, very open. So I'm going to share some slides with you guys here that can guide us with topics. John, do you want to say something about today or about the idea?

I should know, gladly. So Lucio obviously is one of the principal organizers of this meeting. My role in HTA is as the sort of— my title is Alliance Manager, but really what it is is that I lead the staff effort within HTA to provide logistical support to all the working groups that we'll be discussing, including in this breakout session. So, I just want to say that this is really— we're very serious about taking what we learn in these— all of these breakout groups and really implementing it over the next few months. And so, we really appreciate your participation and thank you for being here.

Thank you. Thank you, John. So, if you guys agree, I mean, you can already share the screen and begin to discuss the topics. Is it okay for everybody? Okay guys, now if you guys agree, you can follow this, or if you guys have any idea, so you are open. So let's discuss openly here how to make— So you guys need to understand that, I mean, HCA originally, the idea was to work with health cells. So the idea is that, I mean, it's to see the health body, right? So when I first heard about this initiative about 1 year ago, I saw a great opportunity for us, I mean, that work with infectious diseases. I mean, you can use this network, I mean, to understand much better, of course, what you have, the diversity that you have here in Latin America, but also to put some light on disease, I mean. So as many of you that work with complicated models like leishmaniasis, like trypanosoma cruzi, you guys know, I mean, people that was working in drug development, diagnostic. I mean, it is a model that is very complex. Maybe this technology can open, you know, opportunities for us to explore, can open for us opportunity to forget, for example, grants, you know, for grantee, the research that want to do that here. So the idea then is to explore this. I mean, for example, to work with infection, with infected tissues that you have access to in hospitals. In fact, with different parasites and see there what is going on, because I mean, the whole, the health tissue is being already done, you know. So HCA, they have data basically for the whole body already, work with in different regions of the world. I mean, so they have now the pattern, what is a health organ. The idea now is to bring a liver with leishmaniasis, maybe a heart, effect with the panosoma cruzi and compare. See, just there you have already opportunity to do something. So I'm hoping for you guys to see what you think about this and let you guys— I want to know your guys' opinion, please. Someone want to start?

I think one, two questions I have in my working with human is the source of tissues or the hospitals, or how this could be, in theory could be provided by these biobanks. Actually, we started to, we started the biobank at UNIFASP right now with the COVID epidemics, just by collecting blood from hundreds of patients or hundreds of people working in the area. And this is officially stored in the biobank, but I don't know how is the situation for other diseases and for many tissues. And because as a scientist working in basic research, I'm not used to collect material from patients, and so how— I think one of the key points is to have these samples available in a network basis that could be used by different groups. And then I think this is the key point. Once you have the questions, and then you have this material organized in biobanks, this could be facilitate or improve the interaction. So I think, I don't know how many biobanks we have. In fact, in Brazil at least, we can only use, in theory, we can only use samples if they are officially stored in biobanks. In the right official specifications. I cannot just take samples from there and there and go to— unless you do your own research in your hospital. If you want to share that, it has to be this type of structure. And to have the biobanks, there are some rules that I don't know the details, but you have to keep some specifications and you have to store the records. Because I think this one important point has to be addressed by the group if you want to do the network or if you want to do collaborative work with them.

Do you think, Sérgio, this is going to be complicated to get these samples? I mean, because you are professor from one of the biggest hospitals in São Paulo, right? So the biggest— so do you expect to have— I mean, for us to be complicated to assess this material? So what do you expect?

It's simple, but the question is that we are like 5, 6 years trying to start the biobank, and because we have to do the several steps to implement this. And finally, with the COVID we push hard because we start to collect samples from people, the students in the university, the workers in the hospitals, and everybody that is in the area of the hospital. So we did 3 collections of about 800 people every 3 weeks to follow up the infection. But this is just an example how that pushed to create the Biobank. So finally, we— the Biobank is working now after 6 years, but this was because the epidemics of COVID that pushed the people, okay, let's do that. Because we are lagging because of these regulatory things. Yeah, no, I think that. I think this— I think one of the challenges is that, is to have samples to do the analysis that we want to do, and this— and to make these samples available. To everybody, not— because you have this— it's not a limitation, it's just the question to organize this network of samples. I don't know how the other organizations— I see people that I know that have, that use samples, Kate and Luisa.

Say something about that?

Yes.

Yeah, I agree with Sergio, and I think as we have, for example, we have samples here, like from patients, especially from the intestine, several regions in the intestine, but they are connected to specific research protocols. So, and then in the protocol we say that we are going to store the samples. People sign this, this consent, but we say in the consent that every single use besides the one, the original one, they would have to be consulted. I mean, they have to have the specific consent to do, you know, to use their sample afterwards. So yeah, this is something that maybe we should discuss because sometimes we do have the samples, the biobank, but they are all connected to this consent that we have to ask specifically each individual Could I ask something?

I would share my experience as ethical committee from UNESP, Araraquara, São Paulo. When we have a biobank, you have agreement to use these samples forever. It is a perennial bank of samples. Then if you create a biobank, you could use this, the samples, for each work that you plan. Then when you create the biobank, you have a consentment is specific to biobank, then only struggle of this biobank that is administered for our university, then have responsible for this biobank. But in my experience, if you have a biobank, you can have other studies going on It's not a great problem in my vision. That's my comment.

So this is a very— this is good news. Let me ask you, I mean, what is your guys' interest in— I mean, what disease you guys want to bring for the platform? Can I ask you guys that?

Yeah, I think one of the points is what questions can we answer exactly looking for single cells or cell analysis of these patients. For example, I work in Chagas disease. It would be, you know, one of the major issues is to understand the progression of the chronic phase. So, it'll be interesting to, to have analysis of the cells from patients, at different stages, or to have like a— for example, whether this, there are difference in the, in the heart cells, or in the issues that are affected by Chagas or even not affected by— they're not— just to test the variations or in terms of the disease progression. I think this is one of the things that is important. I think for the Leishmaniasis is probably similar. To analyze patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I don't know about the other disease, whether they would be important, but to do the similar things. Exactly how to do that, I'm not sure. But I think if you can create this information about these, probably RNA or protein expression or proteomics or single cell RNA sequencing could be relevant in this case. But then we have to think that for the patients, this has to be done in a large scale. I think it's possible.

Yeah, go ahead, John.

Oh, I was just going to say that really brings to mind whether COVID could be an instructive model for collaborative single-cell research on other diseases. We've done within HCA a few things. We've created sort of specialized networks of researchers around COVID. We're working on publication bundles. We're planning one with Nature right now where multiple groups can submit papers as part of the same series of research. We're creating a website with resources on single-cell research on COVID, including links to papers, but also datasets and so forth. So I guess I would encourage people to look at that as a model for other diseases as well. And it includes sample sharing, includes data sharing, and also in particular, meta-analyses around— we're bringing together dozens of COVID studies at once to draw some very strong conclusions— has been a very powerful tool. I'll put a couple of those links in the chat just in case you're curious.

This is a very important point that John brings right there. I mean, so just take it— so you just got a machine here in the University of São Paulo. You're going to have today later on to show how this technology works. So the machine is yours. So it's open open for anyone that wants to use, but the kits to use with the machine, they are very expensive. Maybe work as a group, you know, approaching a disease, I mean, by group, because there's so many things that you can explore. Maybe some way that you can share this, you know, I mean, you need to find the ways to make this possible. There is someone work with COVID here, or other parasites?

Yeah, we work with, uh, we are trying to work with COVID now, but we're still waiting for the financial support because we, we have grants that are being, they have been submitted, but we work with neglected disease, which is Hanseniasis, that is still prevalent in some places in Brazil, especially in, in Minas Gerais. And we do have samples, and as much as Sergio said for the Chagas disease, that would be nice to approach some of the issues about how the disease progresses and what's the difference between different backgrounds of people. If the immune system in the skin, the cells in the skin matter, which kind of cells, I mean dendritic cells or gamma delta T cells. And we do have these samples, I mean the biopsies of the patients, and that will be of great interest because it had never been done. Before. But as I said, we don't have like a biobank in this sense that we can use this like for all purpose. We have to really go after the patients and ask for their consent. But we do have that, you know, their contact, and we have a public healthcare unit, which is the reference center for Hanseniasis in Governador Valadares, which is a big region where the disease is very prevalent. So we can, we can track them. So that would be a good thing to do.

And I, I have been working in a group of Dr. Wilson Araújo, who Speaker, speak yesterday. Then we start to work with genomic questions. And also we have in our city that is a countryside city in São Paulo, we have opportunity to have samples and Botucatu has a biobank, and then they are—

they—

we are sharing opportunity to, to get samples from their biobank. Then Araraquara is a branch of the university, Unity, and then Botucatu is a school of medicine which has a biobank. Then It's more easier to have ideas to get samples and share these samples with everyone. I think it's possible.

I think I would just encourage on the funding side, given what we're hearing is that sample— to some extent samples are available and there are opportunities to share data and samples. This is a great— I think I'm not affiliated with CZI, so I should say that, but I think this is exactly the case where multiple research groups coming together and submitting a proposal or an inquiry, I think they would be very open to that. So I'd really encourage you to think about that.

And the question—

Yeah, the question I would have is how do we identify more of those opportunities, particularly where there are shared research interests?

So, I have a question. I, I, my interest on this is because I work with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and the idea was to see the immune response modulation in the cells, in different cells. So, I have previous contact with people from Hospital das Clínicas, and they have a lot of samples, a lot of samples from patients, also samples isolated, Mycobacterium multi-drug resistant, extremely resistant, and other isolates. So the idea was to work with these samples. But I have a question, that I think we should, we should pay attention to one thing that is interesting. If we want to work in, I don't know what should be the best, but if we should work in one big question about one disease, whatever, or if we should do something different, each group working on separated projects. I think if we join in one disease, example COVID, but doesn't need to be that, and look for different aspects, maybe we have results more faster and more available, more quickly, I don't know. For them, start to work with our own projects. I think that maybe could give some trigger in the way we get funding and whatever. I don't know, what do you think about that?

John, John was mentioning about the CZI. You know, CZI, John, for sure is a good option, but to have other options, you know, so what you have here in Latin America, so you have now the opportunity, I mean, to bring this research, this kind of approach for the disease, you know, so in such way, I mean, you are the first in the line to propose that, you know, is something that is not only important for Latin America, but for many countries in Asia, the whole Africa, for many countries in Africa. So my point is, I mean, so we should think also not only, I mean, how to connect ourselves with the others and to make easier, maybe they're set up in models, you know. So as this, the HCA set up models for the health issues, we can work to set up model for disease as well that can be used by other countries, you know. So why not— so John mentioned about the CZI, the James Zuckerberg Initiative. Why not think about Gates Foundation? So if you can go to Gates Foundation as a group, make a proposal that is not, as Andrea said, I mean, not about one disease, but about one, one, one, how to say, I mean, a I mean, initiative, yes, in Brazil, initiative for neglected disease or, or any other.

But I think we would be stronger if we have one big question and a lot of groups working on that for the first time to get expertise, to learn, to train people, and then we could apply in different projects. Obviously, if we have this, we can also always use for our research, our own interests, but I think that would make stronger the proposal, more stronger to get these grants. I don't know, this is only my view, is open to—

I like it very much. I mean, I don't want to know what you guys think, but I think it's great. I mean, you should work as a team, you know. So, John, let me, let I ask you, I mean, how open will be HCA to be connected with this new, this Human Disease Atlas? I mean, do you think you'll be okay to have that you can incorporate this? Somehow on the consortium, I mean, to be part of the consortium?

Sorry.

Yeah, absolutely. That should definitely be possible. I'd have to think about how to do it, but I think there'd be a lot of support for it.

John? John?

Hi.

Hi. My name is Eluisa Tajara, and we have worked on cancer, head and neck cancer. And head and neck cancer has an etiological factor, HPV infection. So we have a lot of samples. It's now approximately 4,000 samples. And it would be nice to get all our propose a project that can incorporate, for example, these samples. And this— the objective is to understand how or why Brazil has different frequency of HPV infection in head and neck cancer. It is growing, but it's much, much low frequency. This is my position.

Oh, you know, that's really interesting. What I would say about ASIA is to date, until now, we have really been focused on healthy samples. So we're really just at the point of experimenting about how to build out these networks around disease. Certainly, I think so far it really has been driven by sort of funder engagement to some extent. So we have a network working on gut disease now, particularly inflammatory bowel disease, funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust. We've heard about the the COVID work, which is actually not really funder-driven, it's much more organic than that. So all I'm saying is I think there's, there are really strong opportunities here and that sounds like a great, a really great example. And we're certainly willing to work with you on that, but we are really sort of in the process of figuring out how to do that right now. So ideas are definitely welcome.

So this is great. I see right there, you know, the opportunity for us to propose something that is really unique It's not just about us, I mean, but also for other countries would be very important to me. Leishmaniasis is a big problem in India. Why not? I mean, this can even reinforce the network, you know, and it's really relevant, I mean, to understand, to discuss the disease. I really see a great potential there. How to do that, guys? I mean, so maybe you can begin to write down something to put a proposal together. What do you guys think?

Well, I think it's a good idea, and I think if we focus— I don't know, people work with different things. We also have some samples on gut as well, so we may also join this initiative. We have a lot of samples from duodenum and colon from healthy patients and from IBD patients as well. So there are many options there, but I think If when we are in Brazil, if we have something connected to neglected disease, as you said, and then we could, I think we have something unique because I mean, this kind of other diseases, they are everywhere. And I think it's nice to compare with Brazil, of course, but then we would join something that is already going on. For us to propose something, I would, I don't know, I would focus on something like neglected diseases that are not unique for Brazil, but we can be the first ones to do. And as you said, Lucio, they are also prevalent in Africa and in India, in other countries. So I think we have a kind of appeal on that. And maybe we can also take like neglected disease and choose some organs to focus in. For example, you were saying about Leishmaniasis. There are many groups and we work with Hanseniasis, for example, and they are both samples in the skin. So if we can take like, um, focus on some diseases and some organs, I'm just telling an example, there are others, but skin, for example, we can compare Hanseniasis and also Leishmaniasis and ask very good questions because the skin is an organ that has not been very much studied in immunology. For example, there are a lot of new stuff on that, on dendritic cells, on ILCs, innate lymphocytes, on gamma delta T cells that are there, and the participation of these cells in healthy versus diseased tissues that are infected by different parasites/bacteria that I don't know, maybe this is an idea. So you focus on the disease, but also in the tissue as well. So it goes along with the idea of the Human Cell Atlas that is like to discover new unique or new novelties on tissues and cells at different tissues.

And Lucio, could I complete Dr. Anna-Maria? Idea, maybe is a good idea to focus on neglect diseases associated to COVID, because is now is a focus in the worldwide, the COVID problem. Then we can propose something in each area of knowledge associated to COVID. Then neglect diseases, cancer, and mycobacteria, Hanseniasis. Then the idea is infection COVID is associated with a low prognosis of this disease. This neglect diseases is associated, has a difference in health and with COVID without COVID, in this disease. It's only an idea that comes up when Dr. Ana Maria was talking.

I like it very much, Ana Maria. It's very good. Very, very good. Thanks, Isabel. So we have a— I think here, I think you have— we have something good on the hand, so let's work on this. Maybe you can make a group. I mean, how can you continue from here on? I mean, so to continue to work, to make a working group, to put this together, how can you do that? Maybe you can share emails and make a group for people that they spoke on that and begin to build something. What do you guys think?

I suggest, as I have been working with a group Could be a WhatsApp group, that is easy way to, to share communication because sometimes email messages, we can lost this message on the— or other type of group that we can have a connection, a fast connection, and share information and connect ideas and exchange experience and collaboration. There's an idea.

I also want to offer two other suggestions. One is, I put in the chat a link to— we're just in the process of creating— I think we have 17 sort of organ-specific or tissue-specific working groups now that we're standing up. We call them biological networks. So, for example, when Skin came up in the case of leishmaniasis. That's an example where— and again, this is in the very early stages, so I don't want to overpromise— but bringing in those organ networks might be one way of expanding interest in finding other people. But the other thing I would say is, from the HCA standpoint, is we could certainly put out a call to our network. We have, you know, 2,000 registered researchers around the world. They, of course, know many other people, so we could put out a call asking to identify researchers working on, say, a particular neglected disease or, you know, some other subtopic. That's something that I think the HCA staff would be very happy to think about how to do, and that might— particularly in connecting with other continents, that might be a way that we can help facilitate a formation of a group.

I didn't understand, John. Can you repeat how to do this with other countries? Are you guys going to make a call or—

I could, I mean, I have to think about the best way to do this, but we have a quarterly newsletter now, so we could include something in that that goes to all 2,000 members. We could even, if there was enough momentum behind an idea, we could even put out a specialized email that just goes to the entire HCA community and asks to ask people to sort of send us names of people that they know who are working on a problem or a disease or something. So, you know, these are— I would encourage you to reach out to the staff. You can even just write info@humancellatlas.org if you have any ideas like that.

But one thing that I think we can take this opportunity of connecting all these people is to really apply for grants, because that's a huge problem for us. I mean, to have the connections, I think it's really good. But the situation of research funding in Brazil is really something very complicated now. And I don't think it's going to change in the next few years. So I think if we can gather together to build something that could be like a network or a group and apply for an international grant. I think that will be very, very good for us, for us as a group. And even as people already said, we can have shared aims to accomplish, but this would help also to strengthen the the research that we have already done, each group. So if we can have something that is like make this networks and this connection into something that could generate a grant proposal, like competitive enough to apply for funding, that would be great.

I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm—

I see that what seems to be common to all disease, to create a kind of common interest, is like the immune cells. I was looking the immune cells in the Human Cell Atlas, and maybe we can look immune cells in our disease. This could be something that make a panel of analysis of immune cells in different disease that, or in neglected, whatever. Can be COVID, can be, but can be Leishmania, Mycobacteria, Chagas. And then if you get immune cells from this disease, and then this would be interesting to see how they change comparatively in terms of the disease or in terms of progression. And then can maybe broad that. And the answer is how the how the human immune systems respond to different disease, different situations. And then this will make a general point that all, everybody may be interested in this area. And then this will be important to create the network and to part the— technologies and to start. I think this would be one of the possible projects that then we can make a call for that.

That's a very good idea.

This is a very good idea. Maybe you can convince Gates to get with DNDI to open a call for projects on these senses, you know, that people can present like exploratory, like CCA did for inflammation. So they go with seed money, like $200,000 for an idea, for a concept. If you do well, they go after with more money, you know, maybe there is something that you can do together with Gates. But always working together, you know, I think that our strain here, I'm going to do, going to be like this, I mean to be together. There's so many things to explore. Here, I used to, I mean, for us here in Latin America, we don't have much of these big consortia, right, across countries. I think it's going to be the first time, so it's important to build that in countries as well, you know. Comparing, for example, what's happening in Bolivia, there is features that happen with Chagas patients there that only happen there, you know. So if you can put this together, I think they can add for our proposal. There's something that you can do then to approach maybe Gates Foundation together with the NDI, who knows. I mean, you have been working with the NDI for a while. I mean, trying to maybe go for Gates Foundation together with the NDI. The NDI Latin America, they have already a very good network in the whole Latin America. They know about the problem, they know how complicated it is. I mean, so this disease is very complex. A project like this can put light on biomarkers for diagnosing, you know, can put markers for many other things like drug discovery. Maybe you can go together for Gates Foundation and who knows, maybe ask for a call for projects that could be like competitive and people can apply. So what do you guys think?

No, I think it's a good idea.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a good idea too. And if you want to, to ask a grant and receive money for a foundation that is in fact in Brazil, is, is not exist, then, and we, if you want to, we want to work together I think we have the, have a uniform proposal. Oh, that I mean, we need to connect a network that have a question, and this question, and it could be a competitive question that in Latin America is more frequent, is more, uh, is different from the worldwide. My point is, when we have the— if you want to, to propose a financial foundation, uh, an idea, we have to, to, in, uh, you know, unique goal, a unique question. That's my vision. I, I can be wrong.

I think that Sergio proposed something that I think it's very interesting since the HCA is like focused on, you know, cells, like the human atlas of cells. And so all these diseases, they have one connection, good connection, that are the immune cells. So I think this is a very nice question that is common to all the diseases. And so we have all the points that are interesting for this proposal. We have like cells, very unique cells, which are the human, the immune cells. We also have a unique, I mean, scenario to offer, which are neglected disease. That we have a lot here, unfortunately. And we have a good question is how these cells are connected to progression to, for example, severe diseases, because they all have severe and mild forms. And I think these questions connect to other things like someone said, when you have a pandemic like that, of of course, if those individuals are affected, they would perform in a poor form, of course, because they have other disease and this may be connected to the immune cells. So I think to have a common proposal, I think the immune cells are very good. I think I Totally agree with Sergio. I think it's a nice connection and it fits into the proposal of the Human Cell Atlas.

It's also an easy sample to collect.

Yes, of course.

It's true. We can also connect that to treatment. Like you said, disease before, after treatment, different treatments and so on. But I think it would be interesting to see how the Human Cell Atlas is doing in the immune cells. What are the technologies they have developed and how the numbers— and then this would be a way to understand how we can do, how many patients, how many samples, what are the the best samples that we can use.

Maybe you can do exploratory, though. I mean, how can you access these samples? I mean, fresh samples. I mean, you guys are talking about blood banks, or?

I think the biobank thing is important. I think if you can convince the some or our biobanks that we have, because as Gina explained, if you have a sample in the biobank, you can use that. So we can ask, collect the samples or add the samples to the biobank, and this can be sent to everybody. Like, doesn't matter what is the— if the patient Once he allows the samples to go to the biobank, everybody can use. And then the only thing is how many samples, what are the samples, how to keep that, how to— I think this would be also important task for the project to feed the biobanks with that samples. It's just, it's not that easy in terms In terms of strategy, you have to make standard procedures to keep that.

Yeah, to collect and to preserve.

If you do that, this will be a good achievement, maybe for disease that they don't find in other parts of the— like the US and Europe, that is very prevalent. In countries. I think this would be a fantastic source of material, and if they are really available in general, this would be great. And then try to see the procedures, how to do the follow-up and use that material as a second step, and then put this together, and it would be a fantastic achievement for the project, like human new cell atlas, or disease, or neglected disease atlas, or whatever you can call it.

So, I think for this group here then, you're going to need people that are going to help us, right? How to set up the protocols, because the protocols have to be very, very tight and well established. So, we're going to need help from the HCA, with members that can help us, I mean, how to proceed, how to establish these protocols, I suppose, right, John?

Yes, and I can certainly think about who the right people are to do that. That's, yeah.

Alex from the Equity Team, he wants to be more interactive with us. He wants to interact more with the Latin American community. He already proposed some projects. I think it's someone that can— he has a very good idea about the whole procedure, someone that may be key to start this.

We also do have a new immune cell network too. The coordinators are listed on that last link that I added. Again, it's a very new effort, so might require some patience, but they— those coordinators could also be helpful too. What I will do is I'll actually write to those coordinators and just sort of get their thoughts on how this can be promoted.

With luck, John, you can have them later on, you know, to discuss.

Right. The other thing I would encourage is we— it would be really terrific to have regional representatives on these networks. And so you can actually sign up for these networks. I think the— I'm not sure there's a sign-up link on that web page. There is the— how do you join? Yeah, there you go.

Right.

So you can register your interest for particular networks too. And I would really encourage that because it would be really terrific effort to get regional representation to the extent that we don't already have it.

Did you guys have access to the, to the platform, guys? I just—

well, we took the, the link that he said.

Yeah, I got the link, but the link, for example, I work with cervical cancer, then we don't have this option in this, this Does that work?

Well, I mean, the other point is we are open to starting new networks too. So these are not— in fact, we just added the craniofacial network. So that's completely open to doing that.

The good point is, I mean, to be there, you know, if you are there on the platform, you can have access for the news, for what is going on, you know. It's a good idea to subscribe on the platform, the HCA. So I think, I think, I think, I mean, you have something very unique on the hands. I mean, so let's do this. I'm very confident. I'm extremely confident about this because it's going to be a fresh approach, and it's a very important approach, of course, for Latin America, but not only for here. I think for other countries as well, you know. I think it's going to start something very important, I would say.

Your microphone is closed.

Maybe, maybe to make this idea even more popular and provocative, why not maybe to write a review on it, you know?

That's a good idea.

You can write a review, I mean, that you can bring all these models. So you guys work in different models and you can talk about this, I mean, say how important is this for the region, for the other countries, you know, you can be, everybody, everybody that's participate on this can be co-author on this paper. And I think it'll be an important one because I believe it's going to be the first time that you're going to bring this to light, this concept of the human disease atlas. I mean, I remember the first time I mentioned this, John, in the HCA meeting, they didn't like much, you know, they said, no, you work with health, you know. But I mean, it's important. You see COVID now, right? So I think it'll be a big contribution. So what do you guys think about this idea to write a review?

I agree. I think this is important to get a network in a project. Then a review is a good project.

Yeah, maybe it's a good start so we can get together and then share. Information. And then from then on, we can specify better the aims and then maybe build something bigger. Yeah, someone has to, to be the, you know, the coordinator, the corresponding author, or I don't know.

Lucio, what is your proposal for the, the review manuscript, what is your idea, what will you focus on?

I will focus on this idea to bring this research and technology, put light on this disease, you know, bring the concept of the Human Disease Atlas and what this can bring for this disease that we don't understand well, you know, it is something like this, but I'm open for you guys. I think it's a good concept, I would say. I mean, so why some people develop problems with Chagas disease and others don't develop? I mean, so there is a great potential for us there to bring to light, you know. But I'm open, so what do you guys think?

I think that's nice because we also can make a good review to us to see what is going on in Human Cell Atlas related to what we—

whatever.

So it will be a good start to make this, you know, reviewing the literature or whatever. And what are the points that are missing, where we can focus on that. Maybe I'm not following the literature, but maybe they already are studying these inflammatory or immune response, whatever. So we could drive better our proposal if we have this. So it's, I think it's nice, maybe focus on this immune response and then look for for the different, in different aspects of this immune response, what has been done, what we can do, what are the new ways to work with that, and also include the technologies, the expertise, and whatever. I think that's a good start.

Yeah, I think we need to choose two coordinators for the review if everybody agrees that is a good start. Then someone could coordinate this project.

I mean, I'll be okay to do that. I mean, I just put my email here. I now ask who agrees to do this. I mean, just write to me, say let's do it. I mean— So if you want to be part of this, I mean, to be active on this writing, so let's go, I mean. So I put my email there, just send an email to me, I mean, I'll make a group and we begin to circulate these drafts that, I mean, I think as Andrea said, it will be an opportunity for us to make a review, you know, on the disease and see the opportunities, you know. So let's do this. And John, I really think what this came, This approach can help other continents, you know. For Africa, it's an opportunity for them. I mean, you have malaria from Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax in Brazil. They have the same there, you know. We have leishmaniasis here, it's a big problem in India. So maybe this is something that can also have a consequence for catalyzing Catalyzing the Africa network, you know, because it's always the money problem, right, guys? So, so doesn't matter if you have good intentions. I mean, if you don't have a way to access funding, it's complicated.

So, but I agree that a review would be an excellent tool for really drawing attention to this. And we just did this with the Developmental Cell Atlas. We have a review coming out I'm not sure about the date, but it was a great exercise. We had a coordinator like we were just talking about, but then we had writing teams for each section. So there were 3 to 4 people that agreed to contribute a section, and then we put all that together and built into a review. And actually, the idea of the review is that it's really a condensed version of the full-scale Atlas. So now that we have the review in press, they're now turning the attention to the actual Atlas. So it's really catalyzed the atlas drafting as well.

It's a great idea, so let's do this.

Lucio, how do you imagine to put together in this review and how we organize this network? What do you think we could do that?

So I'll make, I'll make this group then for the paper. And I mean, I go to write down some ideas. I mean, why not to begin to make a review? I mean, what is going on for this important disease? I mean, what is the bottlenecks that you have so far for this disease? Because you have already some work that has been done for single cell and work with parasites. There is one work that just come out, I mean, from Alex, working with Toxoplasma. You know, but I don't know, I think it's to bring this concept of the single cell analysis and ask questions that there is no other way for you to get the answers. I mean, if you don't use this, you have access to unique material. I mean, you have heart transplantation, you have liver transplantation from these hospitals. You're going to have material that no one else can get, you know. So the idea is to explore this, maybe with blood, like Sergio said, I mean, or maybe you can discuss about the possibility to study other tissues. Liver is a— it was a big problem, I mean, yellow fever, you know, the focus organ was the liver, right? So for visceral leishmaniasis, is the liver as well? I think the idea is to bring this concept of the Human Disease Atlas and mention these important, the more important, more representative diseases, I would say. What do you guys think?

Well, do you focus on infectious disease? Then my question is where I am in here in this context. Since I work with cancer, for example.

I don't know if you know, but I mean, you have a room, you know, that is discussing parallel with cancer, but Wilson is there, right? I guess Wilson is in this one.

I am in the Wilson group to genomic network and Brazil, in the Southeast and South of Brazil. Then we were working together in the first moment with COVID but in the second moment we are focusing in a bank, genomic bank, and which one is working in your, your task, in your specific specificity. Then at first moment we are working with COVID then we finished review manuscript in COVID in this group for the reason I thought your idea is very productive because we share people and we work together. Then this genomic bank in our group in the first moment is Chukovity, but it is derived to other studies in the future.

I mean, why— I mean, you can talk about COVID there, you know, it would be great for the review, mention about what is going on with COVID I mean, I'd say also, but also, but I would say that our strong point would be this disease that you have here, you know, I would say. Don't you guys think? I mean, so as, as Anna said, that we have so many disease here, you know, there's opportunity for us to bring this to light. I mean, I think it's going to be, I tell you guys, I think this review will be so excited because we are bringing light with a technology that, I mean, is so unique, you go to open so many doors, you know. It's the only way to approach. I'm happy to do this if you guys agree, so let's make this group. And put this forward. So, John, can you disclose what is this paper submitted to review?

It's actually coming out in Nature, and the key there was that we got very early interest. So I really encourage you to reach out to editors early on because that, that really boosted the enthusiasm of the group because they knew that whatever the review article was produced, it was going to be published.

Okay, I already sent an email to you, Lucio, so you have my contact.

I go to make then this work group for writing this down, so let's do this together, guys. Good to be—

good to be a pleasure.

I think would be really breakthrough, you know, and as a way to show our intentions for the community.

And Lucio, you are coordinating then the group, then we sent an email message message to you, and you have our address, email address, and we maybe put all of us together in a certain point to work in this project, in the manuscript.

Yeah, so let's do it. I think the best way would be to write this review that would be the base for the proposal, right, to ask grants later, right? So, and also the idea to tell people what we are doing to invite new collaborators in future, I think it's going to be a great deal. What do you think, Sergio?

Yeah, I think it's interesting. Maybe we can already say what has to be in the review, I think. We can maybe describe shortly the actual situation of the, of what we want to challenge, to put as a challenge later on. So, the view can be, "Okay, we have that situation," and describe each case or individual disease or saying the, what are the main problems of each disease. How we can use strategy to do, to analyze cells in these cases, and then what are the challenge and what are the answers that we, we could answer in the near future. So this could be a review like, almost as a proposal for the possible grant. Something like that, so we can divide that, each one will be responsible to make his part of the disease and then we can limit that, not— doesn't have to be so big, has to be very direct and then at the end, we, once each one made that, we can discuss the challenges and the approaches to solve the problems. I think this is, this makes already a sketch for that, and this could be a view, or then if you consider that to be ready to, for an application, and then we can move on soon. So in this way, so we don't lose so much time just writing everything I'm thinking in terms of proposal.

Something that you can bring there is to show the more representative disease and others that are the biggest potential threat, you know. So there is already a list of disease that everybody expects to be the new COVID-19, you know, something that you can— you want to propose to do that. I mean, also something again, like COVID-19 happening in future, you can access this technology much quicker. Why not try to explore? Because you have some menace. There is some— they know there is some other virus, you know, that is listed as a potential new COVID-19. Why not in future points? What would be the more important ones on this review as well, you know, the more representative ones? So there is a lot of things, so what I go— I want to propose for you guys to do, so I go to write to you guys with a proposal so we can keep the trackchains on and you guys feel free to change around, to move. So let's make this very— I mean, let's make this very dynamic. But as John said, you cannot take too long, you know, you need to take now advantage of the momentum and go for it. I'm sure that you can go for a very good journey because it's a new concept. And it's something that can change a lot about this disease.

And I think I, yeah, I agree with you too. And what Sergio said, it's important that maybe we have to set up what are the lines that we are going to write about in each specific contribution, in each individual contribution, so it doesn't become like a very comprehensive review on everything that is That's not the point. So it could be used later on for a proposal. So just like maybe a few questions that each one of us would write about in each specific disease, for example, Chagas or leishmaniasis or whatever. And then you make these points and each one of us will send our specific contribution. And then after that, we set up a common overview and a common proposal that we would write about. And what is the link that would make it a proposal? So I think this is important because I already, each of, I think all of us already coordinate things. And if you leave it freely, people would write something like very long or each one will be in a different avenue. So it would be nice to have a sketch of what they should write about.

Very good point. And I'll do this. I'll do this. I mean, it's a good idea how you guys can contribute it. And I mean, you can define this quick and after give some time. To read this down, I mean to put this down, and I mean to write this down and see how to move forward. But I think this is it. I think this review can open many doors, you know. This review can open many, many doors.

Okay, I sent you already my, a quick message just for you to have my contact.

Thank you, thanks so much.

Joshua, I have sent you my email message too, and I share something that I have been working and then I wait for your contact to integrate our group in the future.

Thank you, Christiane. John, do you see something else that is important for us to discuss? I mean, because I'm so happy already, you know, with the outcome, bring people together, I mean, and a very solid way how to finance these ideas. I mean, do you have anything else you think is important for us to discuss?

The microphone.

Sorry, yes, I was trying to get back to the original slides, but I agree this has been a terrific conversation as well. I just was— one final point, I would just say that these— it's not actually that great of a writing exercise, that arduous of a writing exercise. We asked for sections of 300 to 700 words and the total review was 3,000 words. So it's not— this is not a— in our case, at least for the developmental cell atlas, it was not a very long exercise. So looking back at our original slides, is there anything we haven't discussed? I think it would be kind of— Lucia, if you agree to talk about the goal-setting question about where do we see sort of getting back to the idea of HTA Latin America itself and You know, what would be the goals in the next, you know, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? Is that the best place to go now?

I agree. So someone wants to start with that, or should I start?

If I could ask a question to maybe to get the ball rolling, I was wondering what's the What does the HCA want to take out from, or what is HCA looking for as a contribution from the Latin American countries? Because from what I'm seeing here right now, there's a lot of, well, maybe I'm not reading the room as well, but I understand that many of you are pretty much experimental scientist, right? So you have your own data— well, sample collection and your own sample sets, and maybe that's something that you can contribute to HCA, and I understand HCA is looking for that. But at the same time, for instance, I work in computational groups, so we are more interested in data— downstream data analysis, basically. So the question here is, how would the composition of an HCA contribution or a contribution would look like?

Are you—

is HCA looking more for new data to be incorporated, or is it looking for downstream analysis or reanalysis, things like that?

If I can answer that. No, that's— I'm actually very, very glad that you brought that up because we are really talking a lot about experimental science. And that's not— I mean, HCA is as much computational as it is experimental. So, sort of all of the above. Definitely looking to expand data collection efforts and get much more data deposited in the data coordination platform that you heard about yesterday. What I mean, just in this conversation, we're hearing about new new scientific questions that are not currently really being addressed in the NTHA, that's fantastic. We really want to promote that. We do have an analysis working group. So, Guillermo, I would say, again, it would be— I personally would think it would be really terrific to have, again, a sort of regional representative on each of these working groups. And so, getting somebody on the analysis working group would be wonderful, actually. That's a very active group that talks about data analysis. There's a lot of work going on right now in terms of how do we sort of expand the DCP, the Data Coordination Platform, and in particular think about— right now it's all open access data. We don't have, you know, raw genetic data in there or anything like that, but how do we think about managed access? And so those are the types of questions where getting more, you know, a broader input from the community would be really important. And honestly, a lot of it too is just looking for ways to promote the use of the technology, but that includes computation. So how do we think about building a critical mass of computational scientists, you know, in Central and South America that can help contribute to the goals of ACA in that area? That would be a really terrific goal, actually. So thank you.

It was an important point, yes, very important point. So Latin America, Latin America was not officially represented yet, so the webinar is about that, you know, to present the concept for Latin America, for our countries, and how to identify people that want to work together, put this together. And now you're talking how to keep the— how to be able to finance this, I mean, to find a way that you can move on, you know. This talk, guys, the recording is going to be available for the others, you know. Maybe you can have more people later on looking for us and try to participate on this. You guys okay with that? If there is more people that want to participate, contribute with the paper.

That's my question. It's okay for me, but we can invite and share the idea for people that does not— is attending in this, this, this meeting. We can join people. That's my question.

Sio, I think you're on mute.

I don't know what you think, John. I think here we have people that is interesting on this point. If you make maybe the group too big, it would be complicated to coordinate this, you know. Maybe you can start and see how it goes, but the idea is to make something very focused, right? To don't take too long. So how many words, John, did you say about the review? That you can submit there?

You say how many words?

Yes.

They asked for between 3,000 and 4,000, basically. I think, you know, we had— you don't have to do it this way, obviously. We had a lead coordinator. We had maybe 6 or 8 lead authors who were the lead author in each section, and each lead author then recruited 2 to 4 additional people to help them write that section. So all in all, it was probably 30 to 40 people that were involved, but coordinated through— we had every 2 weeks we'd have a call, a teleconference with the lead authors to monitor progress. And it was all— it was basically just a Google Doc so people could contribute as they saw fit.

I think it would be interesting to bring people from other continents. Don't you think? I mean, there's something that you have to think, but I think it's a good idea to make something more inclusive. I mean, let's make this group and put this to work. So what do you think, Sergio?

I think if you can keep announcing and then once you have something more specific, some people can join, because sometimes we don't know exactly. So when you receive the announce, you're not sure what exactly is going on. And then once we set up the main topics and then, oh, somebody say, "Oh, this is something that I'm interested." And they join. And maybe people from other countries like India, Africa, or—

Yeah, so let's, yeah, let's start, let's see how it goes, I propose, I mean. I mean, let's start and see how it goes. Okay. Do you guys have anything else that you guys want to discuss? I mean, that will be important, like you guys brought something very important to have access to samples and so on, that can be complicated, right? Do you guys have anything that you guys want to bring on?

Lucio?

Yes. Sorry, this is Keith Okamoto speaking. I really enjoyed the discussion. I think it's a wonderful idea of putting together this group and everything. I have just one question because it seems like we do have a very nice group of people that has experience in getting the clinical samples. We also have people that could give us support for the sequencing analysis, but I think one of the— our bottlenecks right now, at least speaking in Brazil, will be the— for people with expertise and having the resources for generating the single-cell sequencing data. How is that being progressing locally? Do you think that that could be a problem? Or do you think that right now we are ready to go forward and put together a grant that we could successfully carry out all the research from the start? I mean, from getting the samples, getting the data, and then being able to analyze all the sequencing. Thank you.

Yeah, you mentioned about the technology itself. I mean, you mentioned about the machines, right?

Exactly. Not only the access to the machine, which was really recent for in our case, but also the expertise for doing all the experiments for getting the data.

Yeah, this is a very good point. I mean, so you are discussing this as well in the other sections? And I hope you hope to identify these abilities here, you know, or if you cannot find these people here, you can have access to people that can help us in the TCA community, right, John? If you have any limitations, we just got a machine here in University of São Paulo 3 days ago. The machine is already running, you know, I think the limitation is not going to be the machine, to be honest with you. I think the more challenge for us, I think, would be to do this coordination, I would say, you know, across countries.

Yeah, so that's what I mean. But it would be really nice to count on some experience from other people from the HCA so that we can have this technology transfer through— in our— in Latin America, so that we can explore more the technology. It would be interesting to do some training, to get some training opportunities for postdocs that in Brazil that can go to some specific labs and then come back to bring the technology, to learn the technology, or decide like select some, some students that are very good and then get this training on this area. I think this would be an interesting point to support. If you can ask money for that, this would be important, I think, at this point.

We thought to do, Sergio, a training. So you just got this machine, the 10X machine, for the single cell. It's the first operational machine for 10X in Brazil. And Wilson, he got one. He's going to have his machine running in Paraná. He told me this morning 3-4 weeks. So the idea that you can set up a training on the technology in the two places at the same time, that you can coordinate with HCA network, I mean that you have people from HCA helping us, you know, and assisting us remotely, you know, teaching about the technology, tell them the experience about RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, and so on. So I just—

Who is going to be training on that? You have already the staff for that?

Sorry, you have already someone? You have— I identify someone, she called Camila Nascimento. She is a postdoc in the Hospital das Clínicas here in USP. She just came back from her postdoc in Canada. She is expert on the machine. I mean, so she can teach us. You have local people that can teach, but also I think it will be important to be connected with labs that have already produced data on this machine, you know, for GoFi specifics. The idea then is to have two locations have training in Brazil at least. So I want to find— I know there is another 2x or even other machines. You're not fixed with this company, but the idea is that you can have maybe two places in Brazil already. So we use Soteria Greece to be one in Paraná and one in São Paulo, here in USP. Maybe you can find people in other labs in Latin America. I know that there is two other, two exes on the Mexico, I guess Chile, if I'm right. So the idea that you can have this training, you know, in the same time and have access of people from the HCA community that can help us, you know, with specifics that you can do.

Also for the data analysis.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make a practical course online, but having people from different expertise. So what do we do from the start? We will go there, use the machine, put, put what on the machine? Is the cells, the cells infected? Is control, not control, whatever. How to analyze this? And then also, what are the next steps? So with the all this data, we need people that process, or we need people that sequence, analysis, and then just to, to put everybody in the same level, so we can understand where we are and what we need to do. So, I am a wet lab person and then my, my obligations are do this or that and then I will send for someone, so. Also because I think it's important to us to understand what we need if we want to apply for a project. I want— I cannot just bring a lot of data and not to do— not to know how to, to do with that. So we need to have collaborators from bioinformatics from that analysis, whatever. So I think a course, practical but experimental, practical, logical, would be very nice to do that.

Very good idea, Andrea. I mean, to be more broad, right? To offer the whole technology, to explain about the technology, the procedure. So this is great. So just, Patricia, Patricia Severino, that is helping is helping with the organization of the webinar. She has a very good facility in the Einstein Hospital, so they have the top machines, you know, for sequencing. There you can have access for a very good price. I mean, there is no price on that, you just pay for the costs, you know. So it's already a facility that you can have access. Because I don't know if you guys know, but when you go for this technology, I mean, you need to have a very capacity, a big capacity for sequencing. Anything else, guys? Any opinion or questions or possibilities?

We've been developing some courses on single-cell analysis here at INMEGEN México. So the plans to deploy them were kind of cut short because of COVID but maybe we could use this momentum to try and get them back on track and maybe pulling them out Or maybe trying them out with this community and then seeing where it takes them.

I just put a link in the chat. We're just starting to compile online courses and training materials on, you know, on technology and computational analysis. So there are a few of those already up on the resources page, but if you know of others, please let me know and certainly encourage other people to use those resources. These are not HCA resources. These are just things that have been created by other institutions.

Hi.

Hello.

I just want to say I'm also from Mexico. We have already— we had a course on single-cell analysis with the Mexican Bioinformatics Network on July— no, on August.

So I think we have a small team, but there are some people that now they have the ability to analyze data. For example, in my lab, we can analyze single-cell data. So, well, I am Gaby Valderas from the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases here in Mexico.

So this is great. So I mean, I take the opportunity to invite you both to help us to organize this workshop.

Sorry, my network is not okay.

I will, I will take the opportunity then to invite you guys, I mean to ask you guys to help us to organize this workshop. Yeah, you and Guillermo, it would be great.

So let's do it. We already have all the materials and for example Leonardo Collado He's a guy from— well, he's Mexican but working in the US.

He had experience analyzing spatial single cells.

So we also— not only normal single cells, but also spatial.

We can do that. Yeah, this is great. It's very good news. So wonderful.

Thank you very much. Are those materials online?

Yeah, they are online. However, now I am not on my cell phone, but later Maybe I can share you by email.

Please do, yes.

Yeah.

I know, I would love to, I would love to see them.

Yeah, okay.

How she can contact you, Don? She has your email or?

I am going to put so you can write me.

Okay. So this is great, so really good. Yes, I see. Yeah, wonderful. Okay. John, do you know what time is— oh, sorry. John, do you know what time is planning to finish the session? I mean, for the next one, you know?

I'm trying to assess. We're going until 11 AM here, so noon your time, Lucio. Yeah, you have another 15 minutes. Yeah, 15 minutes. We have a half-hour break, and then we'll come back to the plenary for report back.

I must say that I'm very happy already with the outcome, you know, because I have something concrete to work. And I tell you, I'm so confident, I mean, that we're going to have no problems to get resources for that, you know, because we're going to be the first one. So let's do this, guys, please. I mean, I'll count on you guys, and let's go for it. I mean, I'm going to talk with the NDI also about the idea. Maybe if you can get a draft, maybe you can even invite the NDI to be part of that, you know. They have a very good network, I mean, they're struggling with problems like drug discovery and so on, so maybe you can do something together.

Lucio, could you ask a question, please? What time we come back from this section? I mean, we go together again today, or is this meeting is closing now, or we come back?

I'm sorry. Yeah, this is a very good point. I mean, to be honest, John, I don't know. I think you're going to leave this room, right, John? And you go back for the main one, right?

Right, but it won't happen automatically. You need to go yourself.

You have to access the first link to go back for the first room.

Okay, thank you.

So you have people from Brazil, from Mexico, You have another country here? I think it's Mexico and Brazil, right? Yeah, it's great. So, let's do it. I'm sure that you can bring more people later on, you know. I don't know, guys, if you guys are okay with the session, maybe you can close a little bit earlier. I don't know if you want to say something else, or I don't know.

I only want to say thank you for the opportunity to be here. It's a great opportunity to, to, to be part of this project. And then I am available to help if I have an opportunity and, and discuss. And I think the course that was proposed is a very good idea. Then we— everybody has the same knowledge. And also the opportunity to send the students to labs who has expertise in, for example, single-cell analysis. Microfluid technique is a very interesting technology that I'm interested in.

Take a question. Something this platform can do for you guys also is explore more basic questions, you know. So if you have cell cultures, you can go for this platform and ask more I would say academic questions as well, you know, so I don't know if you guys have interest in that. Yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think I'm okay, John, with the result. I mean, maybe you can start a little bit— finish a little bit earlier.

What do you think? Yeah, I think that's completely fine. So we'll reconvene in the original plenary link. Let's go back to that link in 40 minutes. So we have a bit of a break. And Lucy and I will report out. I'm just going to put in one final request, which is that if you are not registered with the HCA registry, please do so. It's the best way to get news and updates on HCA activities and the quarterly newsletter and everything like that. So it's just humancellatlas.org/register, but we would love to see you there.

Thank you. If you do this, it would be great for us, guys, because you can have a huge number there, you know. So please do this if you can, if you can share this link with your colleagues from the university, you know, people that you think that you like this opportunity, I think please share the link with them as well. See you guys later.

Yeah, sorry, I have a question. I'm sorry, and we come in, uh, in 40 minutes in the Breakout 2 selection. Is the same— is the same section?

Is it a Group 2? I'm sorry, everybody together now. I guess for the next one would be like One single room. Okay. Right.

All right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Let me, let me see if I can put the link in the chat actually.

Oh yeah.

John, please.

Just so everybody has it.

You can just go there and stay there, right?

So yeah, we'll be there by the rest of the meeting.

Okay. Thank you everybody.

See you guys soon. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Really, really appreciate it. I'm very happy with the outcome of this, you know. For me, I'm very basic. You need to survive. I mean, to do science, you need to survive and you need resources. I think you have a very nice opportunity here, guys, to make this happen for this network, you know, and maybe who knows, teach others, you know, bring together continents. I mean, with this idea, I really like it. Thanks so much. Really, thank you. See you guys later.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

John, you have to talk, right?

Yeah, we should.

Yeah, bye-bye.

See you.

Bye-bye, guys.

Sorry, Lucio, is it still here?

Yes, I still here.

Hi, Lucio, nice to meet you. I'm Yesid Cuesta from Colombia.

Hello, how are you doing?

Because I just connected because people from the organization sent me now the link.

Sorry about that.

So is this the infectious diseases breakout room?

Yes.

It is. Okay, so I think that I would like to, if you have time, I would like to tell you briefly what's my interest with this topic. Absolutely. Yeah, okay, so I am working on the computational prediction of host protein-protein interactions. I'm a bioinformatician and I am highly interested to have access to the Pencil Atlas data in order to add to my models. I am applying several machine learning methods in order to predict protein-protein interactions. So that's my main interest. We published, we already published last year a paper, but that was a paper based just on orthology methods when we map different parasite proteins in different human tissues in order to model the crosstalk between the host and human host and parasites. But now I would like to to have access to, I mean, to more realistic data in order to add to my model. So I would really appreciate if you can add me to your mailing list, or if maybe you have any interest in this topic, I will be happy to collaborate with you all.

Let me— you probably joined after I put this in the chat, so make sure I get that right. I'm just putting the registry link in, so that's really the first step is to register.

Yeah, I already registered. I think that from Colombia we are just 2 people. In the register panel. Yeah, that was my first step. Let's see what happened. If you can involve me in the next meetings, I would really appreciate.

You have to increase this number in Colombia, you know, help us to get better, good numbers there, better numbers, you know.

Yeah, got it, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

So I would like to know if some of you are working on host-pathogen interactions.

I have done this before, but I mean, I'm doing now. But I mean, so something that you discussed before that you missed it, you go to write down a review about this possibility, you know, to bring this concept of the human disease atlas. And this approach is more than welcome. I'm sending to you my email here on the chat. Please, if you can write back to me, I mean, I'm going to put on this group.

Sure, sure. I will send you an email. So yeah, I did my PhD in Brazil, in Minas Gerais.

Where?

Where?

I was supervised by Guilherme Oliveira at Fiocruz.

Oh yes, very good, very good, very good.

Wonderful.

So yeah, you speak Portuguese then? You speak portunhol, right? So it's okay.

No, I don't follow Portuguese.

Muito bem.

Oh, oh, oh, eu falo portunhol. So guys, for us in Brazil, I can tell you now that you are here It's so important, I mean, you have other countries, you know. Please help us, I mean, to spread this and you have to be together with other countries, you know, Colombia, Mexico, we have to be together. So the challenge for us is not to do something locally, but to bring other countries together, you know, to find people that is really interesting to do that. It's extremely important for us. Please count on me. I put my email there. I go to share with you guys also my WhatsApp.

Number?

Oh, thank you. Please feel free to contact me anytime. Um, dealing with the beginning of the, of the network, you know, is, is very critical, and I don't want to, to lost you guys. I put here my number.

Got it.

Okay, thank you. Please, just please, and my— you guys have already my email, right? So please just Let's keep in touch and let's, let's, let's, I mean, you know, Asia, Asia, um, since when, John, Asia is together playing as a continent? I think 4 years, right? Asia, Asia Network.

3 or 4 years. Yeah, it was very soon after Asia started.

3 years.

Yeah, 3 years. And they are the more active members, John, I think is Japan, Korea, and Singapore, right? And Australia.

I, yes. And, you know, Vietnam's becoming more active. We're now, we're finally getting more into China. That's been, that's been a bit of a struggle. Um, but we have, uh, we have 1,300 people registered for the Asia meeting next, uh, next month.

So wow, this is great.

Yeah. So that's our, that's our target for South America and for Central and South America.

Now, just to mention that it's difficult to bring people together, you know, So it is important that you— we are connected, you know, very important. I mean, we're organizing some— you're organizing some events for sure. I mean, for a few weeks, like workshops and so on. You want to do this together with you guys, I mean, okay? Let's keep in touch by email or by WhatsApp if you guys will. You can set up calls and make how to discuss how to do this in the practical way. I see a big future. I see a big future ahead of us. And work with this approach of neglected disease, infectious disease. You have no basic competition so far. You want to start the whole field. Let's do this.

Exactly, exactly. I deeply agree. This is an empty niche.

Yes, yes. So let's do this.

And we need to take— we need to take advantage from that really good data that you are going to produce in the Human Cell Atlas. Yeah, yeah, I am so excited. I cannot wait for that data in order to— because I, you know, Lucio, in Fiocruz they are really, they are strong. Also you at the ICB at the USP with neglected diseases and infectious diseases. We were working with with different kind of eukaryotic parasites that infect different kind of tissues. I'm going to send you my paper, but it is real that we need to be more deeply— what about the cellular networks in the isolated cells in order to increase the accuracy in our computational models? I am talking from my side, from the bioinformatician side, but I would like also someday to test several computational hypotheses using some proteomics facilities, but here in Colombia it's not easy to test protein-protein interaction based on mass spec, but that would be nice to have access.

You can count on us. You can count on us.

Yes, you have there a really good facility at the USP.

You just got, I mean, you know, I think the limit, I mean, to be honest with you, to be very straight with you, at least here in Brazil, the limitation is never money, you know. I mean, I see people sometimes, you know, comply, I mean, you know, complain, complain, but it's people that don't like to collaborate much, you know. I really see, guys, that you have opportunity here, I mean, to stop with this problem, money problem, you know. We are bringing a new approach for the HCA that I think would be important for them as well. It would help them a lot, you know, I mean. And I think what you can do is bring a partner that has been shy in the HCA so far, that is Gates Foundation. Gates Foundation, I think, can finance the whole branch of this human disease atlas, John. So this is the idea, to get these guys to finance all that That time, I think they'll like it. They'll like it because they struggle to get people together working together, you know.

Sorry, Lucio, I lose, but the Human Disease Atlas is part of the Human Cell Atlas, right?

You go to be now, right, John?

You agree with this concept? It doesn't actually. Yeah, this is what came out of the breakout group. It's not— it doesn't currently they exist.

Okay, got it, got it. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sir.

Okay, you are bringing this concept now, this because it's so nice, you know. You are making history here, you know, so it's good.

Okay, cool. Thank you for your attention, and I will contact you.

Thanks so much, guys. You have to go now because me and John have to put this report together.

Yes, and about half an hour.

You guys have my contact there. Please contact me.

Okay.

Okay.

Sorry, what's going to be the, the link for the next sessions?

It's going to be the same as he—

it's the same. Yeah, not this one, but the, the one for the opening of the meeting earlier today.

I go to share with you here. I don't—

I don't— because I, I, I, I, I know that, that, that, that, that link because I put here for you.

Oh, that's perfect. Here's the meeting link right there. Yeah, okay, okay.

Yeah, okay. Thank you very much, and I hope to see you someday.

Hope to see you soon.

In a personal way. Maybe soon. Okay, yeah. Thank you.

Ciao, ciao.

Bye, guys.

Thank you.

Obrigado.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Keep in touch. Adios.

Ciao. Ciao ciao.

Hello, John. Hey, Lucio.

I like it.

I like it. Oh yeah, I know. Yeah, I like him too. And also, I like Yalbi as well. I thought her enthusiasm was really excellent from Mexico. Oh, from Mexico. It's true. It's true. The woman who was there too. So how would you like to do the report back?

So wait, can you repeat, John?

Actually, first of all, so I took very rough notes. Can I— maybe I can share those with you just in case that— let me actually, let me create a Google Doc and then share that with you.

If you can send to me, I can, or I can send my notes to you, or you can send to me, either way.

Oh, I'll send mine, you can just add yours.

Okay. Is something that I can access, or?

Yes, give me one second here.

It's so funny, I remember the first time that I brought this idea of the disease, you know, oh my God, they didn't like it, you know, when we I don't remember.

Who didn't? Of even Sarah or who didn't like it?

Was just between us, okay, was with Jay.

Oh, Jay or Jane?

Jay, Jay from Japan. Yeah, yeah. Because it's before COVID-19, you know, so it was, you know, You have already so many challenges to bring all the continents together. To bring now disease, I mean, I think like one year ago was something complex.

Yeah, I mean, I think the COVID example is really strong because it enables people to understand that this is a powerful approach. I also thought Sergio's suggestion of looking at the immune cells is really powerful too because it's just a very direct link to what what we're already doing, and that's, that's very strong.

Sergio is my former supervisor, is one of the biggest parasitologists that we have in Brazil. You know, everybody respects him, you know, someone that you can count on.

So sorry, I'm just trying to dig up your email to share this document. I need your Gmail. Do I have your Gmail?

Esse é, é Lúcio Freitas Júnior, @gmail.com. Oh my God, I got so many emails from them now.

You're very brave. You're very brave to put your email in the chat. Here we go. Yes. Okay, got it.

Okay.

So I think it might— I mean, Would you be willing to take the lead and I can chime in, or how do you want to do this?

I mean, to report the— I mean, if you don't mind to take it, do you mind to take, John?

No, I can certainly do that. So the key points, let's see. So he discussed the challenge. I have to go back to the outline that we had in the slides, but challenges. Let's see. Obviously funding, I mean, that's going to come up in every breakout group, I'm sure. It sounds like— so I want to make sure I interpreted some of the comments correctly. It sounded like at the beginning what people are saying is that biobanks are a very helpful tool, but that it can be hard to set them up. I think that's what Sergio was trying to say. That COVID actually helped with that in terms of— I couldn't quite tell if it was the political support or if it was breaking through red tape or what it was that was the helpful factor there.

It's not technical. You have the data. They're just very bureaucratic to access, you know. But I mean, you have that professor that has to correct us. I mean, say that you can't have access. We're not going to be problematic I'll say, you know. Yeah, you're not going to be problematic. You have, you have in that chat with us, in that room, the 3 biggest universities in Latin America, you know. They have huge hospitals. I mean, oh, you know, it's not a problem. So a sample, as access to samples is not a problem, John.

That's what, yeah, that's what I really got out of it, is that it's not sample access, it's not, um, You know, even consent, you can get around the consent issues. It's really, you know, funding and networking. And particularly, I think the networking is what we end up talking about. And how do you sort of— how do you rally people around a problem, you know, and find a problem that really will get a critical mass of people participating? That seems to be the main thrust of our group. It is. So we talked about neglected diseases. That led to some examples of some proposals. That would be a good opportunity for funding proposals, and it could be disease-specific. We talked about Chagas disease or TB. Leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis, right. Hanseniasis. Is that a big issue in South America, Hanseniasis?

I would say, yeah. I mean, you have so many diseases here, but I would say Leishmaniasis. I have a professor here with me that you both can call as well. Carol, what is the more important disease you think? Do you know John? Can I introduce John? What is the more important disease that you think here in Latin America, the more representative? Carolina, over. Carolina works with Chagas disease and leishmaniasis. What is the more representative disease there, I mean, the more important, I would say?

In terms of infectious, leishmaniasis.

Leishmaniasis.

Public health, yes. Leishmaniasis, John, is important because it's not the more important and prevalent here, but it's expanding in Europe. In Europe, you know, with the global warming now, You have now the mosquito that transmit the disease, you know, going back to Europe. And there's a huge problem in India, in North Africa as well. So I think it's a model that is really good.

I mean, Chagas disease has one interesting point that is a Latin American disease, only exists here, right? Yeah, I mean, this is really, I think, interesting. There are many groups working on that, many important questions that cannot be— have not been answered, you know. So the sampling has to be done here. There are patients in Europe, in the US, and in Japan, but you know, this is an imported disease and cannot be transmitted by vector there. So, right. But I mean, Leishmaniasis is much more prevalent.

OK. Yeah, and it was Chagas. I caught a comment that I didn't understand, but there might be— it was specifically about Bolivia. And in fact, Lucia, this might have been you about that there are some special features in—

Because Chagas, why Chagas is— I mean, all diseases have these, but in case of Chagas, there are different sort of manifestations in the body. Okay, so it can be heart disease, gut disease, I mean gastrointestinal, and also depends on the country. So people from different countries, in Brazil is more common to have gastrointestinal disease, in the northern part of South America and Central America, Mexico, heart disease is more common. Okay, in Bolivia is more, is very common to have vertical transmission, okay, from mother to child.

Oh, it is back.

Yeah, Sergio is back.

Continue, continue.

And so that you have a lot of treatment also. In Bolivia, treatment has higher rates of failure compared to other countries, but data is very limited, taken from, you know, clinical trials that have been done by Doctors Without Borders. So I mean, there is not much study going on, you know. So from the point of view of research, anything that we can bring about host is totally unprecedented, I think, for all of these diseases.

Yeah.

So yeah, there's a lot of things to Yeah, but this is a very good point to me. Why we have some prevalence depend on one country or the other country? Is there genetic background or is a parasite background?

For leishmaniasis, for instance, in India it's really common to have visceral leishmaniasis that after treatment becomes— it comes— so it affects liver and spleen. So after treatment, for some reason, the patients develop a skin rash, you know, a skin disease. But this only happens there, doesn't happen in Africa, doesn't happen in Brazil, you understand?

So why?

Why? It's because of the kind of parasite stock they have in India? It's because of the kind of genetic of the population they have in India? Or is a combination of both?

We don't know.

Yeah, the only way to explore this, guess what? Single cell, no?

I think so. Absolutely. No, seriously, that's really helpful. Thank you. That's really good context. So I think in terms of reporting back, so those are possible ways to sort of get a group together around a particular problem. It could be a specific neglected disease or Or then I can bring in the idea of looking at the immune aspects as sort of a way to tie all the disease research together under one flag, if you will. That— let's see. We talked about how— we talked about the need to sort of establish protocols around that research, too. I think, Lucila, you mentioned that point. And so then that got to the idea of the Human Disease Atlas. And then the agreement coming out of the group is that we would put together a proposal for an outline for a review and get a working group together to work on that and hopefully get a journal interested in that. And then the point that this actually could also be used to catalyze connections among different continents as well. It's not just Latin America. And then—

I'm not sure what—

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry.

No, I'm not sure where— how to fit in the— I mean, Christiana mentioned a couple of times the cancer and how that works in. But I think there's another group really working— another breakout group focusing on cancer. So I think they'll address that part. We talked to them, we talked about sort of the need for online training courses or sort of the potential for online training courses and how to think about organizing that on a continental basis. And then I would like to bring in the computational part too, because I was really glad Guillermo brought that up.

Yeah, so you want to do this training workshop. You have already the machines in different countries, so we want to do everybody the same time together with HCI expert helping us, you know. Like this, you can, with one single training, mobilize one expert to talk with 4 different labs, 4 different countries, for example, you know. I think you can potentialize the time for people, you know. So get someone that know how to do attacks sick, in the same time he can teach people from Brazil, one group from Mexico, one group from Chile, be cool, you know. It's a concept that you can bring on and as a way that you can standardize protocols. This is important for us. In Latin America, John, is very— Latin America, the people here, they like more to build walls than bridges, you know. This is very cultural. You know, to do things together. There's something that for us here we have to work very hard, you know, but—

So there are machines in— those are the 3 countries where there are machines, is that right?

Yeah, there is 2 machines in São Paulo, in Brazil. I got the first one. The second one is from Wilson that talked yesterday. Oh yeah, yeah. His focus is chronic disease, is cancer in Paraná. South of São Paulo. And there is another 2 machines running, one in Mexico and one in Chile, if I'm right. So the idea is to get these 4 guys at the same time to do a training that can be in the same virtual room with students. It'll be cool.

Right, right. I think it's great. Absolutely.

Yeah.

One thing that is very nice, I mean, I don't know if you're making notes for presenting for everyone else. But when you suggested the— how do you call the work— not working groups, the ones that are specific for issues.

Right, the biological networks.

Yes, biological networks. Yeah, one point that is interesting for infectious disease is that they can extend all these or many of biological networks at once because they We need to profile several organs. So it would be really interesting, you know, working with people who are doing research for these different topics so that we can compare when we are working on neglect diseases because several different organs are affected or not affected. And we even don't know why this happens, why you have atropism for our organ, we don't know. Understand? So it would be nice to be more kind of orthogonal to these other initiatives.

Maybe a way to include these people, once you go to have something focused on liver, for example, you know, people talk on liver, why not to bring a disease that, you know, has a focus on liver as organ, like yellow fever, leishmaniasis, you know, It would be a nice way, I mean, to have a fresh— as you said, I mean—

Yeah, it's very hard to say. I mean, we have to rely on other work done by people who are sampling healthy tissues and, you know, normal tissues so we can understand what is changing when we are talking about this disease.

No, that's great. Thank you. So I'll run through these points, and then certainly, Lucio, if you have anything to add, please, you know, I'll prompt you to add anything.

Yeah, I'm very happy with the outcome, John, really I am, you know, because you have there— I don't know if you have been in Ethiopia in that meeting. Have you been in Ethiopia last year? No, I only joined in March, so I So I remember very well Gates Foundation asking, you know, to be more inclusive, asking people to be, you know, to be here, to be here. It's not, you cannot convince people from Latin America to go for the health issues. You need to bring something more, you know. And I'm sure that Gates Foundation, you like, you know, you support, I mean, you like the idea to support this concept of the human disease atlas. You know, I'm sure. You just need to show to them that you have here a proposal, that you are well connected, and that you want to work with, you know, online, you know, respecting protocol, respect good practices, you know, laboratory practices. If you can show this, I'm sure, I mean, this can be something very important for HCA, you know, and for us, of course, you know. I think this is it. Very happy. I mean, do you expect something like this, John, or you got surprised?

I was very happy too. I wasn't actually sure what would come out of it in terms of concrete ideas. Typically with something like this, people just want to talk about how to get funding and that's it without getting into any concrete ideas. So I know I was very happy with that.

Everybody come with this problem, right? Money problem, right? But you know how to fix it, how to make this, how to fix that. I think here, I think really for us is much easier than for the others, you know, because no one is doing that, you know.

No, I agree. But it's just that key of getting a critical mass of— I think that's what excites funders, right? It's if they see that there are many people working on a problem and they really feel like there is potential to make major advances. If it's just one group, sometimes I think it's like, you know, do you want to fund one research lab to study a problem? No, it's not, not that exciting. So yeah, I think that was a very good theme. I like it.

I really like it. So what time have to come back, John, you think?

In 10 minutes, actually. So I might take a quick break and then—

Now is the lunchtime, lunch break or not now?

No, no, no, no, we have, uh, we have, uh, 45 minutes for the report back and then— right, right, yeah, yeah.

So I go to the pause here too. So let's talk later, John, if you need help, you're going to be there together.

Sure, absolutely. Okay, nice to meet you.

Thank you.