Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz
ISSN: 1678-8060 EISSN: 1678-8060
Vol. 102, Num. 3, 2007
Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz - Vol.102(3) June 2007
Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Vol. 102, No.3, June 2007, pp.
Foreword
Ricardo Lourenço de Oliveira, Cláudio Tadeu Daniel Ribeiro, José Rodrigues Coura
Code Number: oc07044
The present issue of Memórias do Instituto
Oswaldo Cruz is entirely devoted to malaria studies as part
of the celebration of the centenary of the discovery of the exo-erythrocytic
cycle of malaria parasites by Henrique BR Aragão (1879-1956).
This third issue of volume 102 contains 23 articles
that bring original contributions following investigations performed
by researchers from several American, European, Asian, and African
countries, dealing with quite a few fields in malariology, from
genetics of human plasmodia and anopheline vectors to malaria epidemiology,
immunology, and therapy.
Henrique Aragão has worked at Instituto
Oswaldo Cruz, for 53 years, from 1903, when he arrived in Manguinhos
as a student to carry out his doctoral thesis, until a week before
passing away. In April 1907, just two years after graduating in
medicine and working as researcher assistant at Instituto Oswaldo
Cruz, Aragão described the development of the dove parasite
Haemoproteus columbae in the lung capillary endothelium of
this vertebrate host bitten by an infected Hippoboscidae fly Pseudolynchia
canariensis. This discovery, that came out in his paper titled
Über den Enwicklungsgang und die Ubertragung von Haemoproteus
columbae (Arch Protistenkd12: 154-167, 1908),
was a precursor of the recognition of the existence of pre-erythrocytic
multiplication forms in the plasmodial cycles, confirmed to occur
in human malaria only in 1948, some 40 years later.
As part of the celebration of the centenary of
Aragão's discovery, a scientific meeting, "Henrique
Aragão Seminar on Malaria Research: 100 years of the discovery
of the exoerythrocytic cycle of malaria", was held in Manguinhos,
on April 12 and 13, when Ruth S Nussenzweig, from New York University,
was nominated to the 2007 Hernrique Aragão Medal, honoring
those who markedly improved the knowledge in malaria and reverencing
excellence on malaria research.