The Department of Parasitology of ICB-USP has maintained, together with the Federal University of Acre (UFAC), field research activities in the state of Acre. To this end, ICB-USP and UFAC have entered into a formal scientific cooperation agreement. Currently, the laboratory that supports these activities is located on the UFAC Forest campus in the municipality of Cruzeiro do Sul, in the western part of the state of Acre, near the border with Peru. This laboratory, coordinated by Prof. Rodrigo Medeiros de Souza (UFAC), provides research internships to dozens of researchers and undergraduate and graduate students, not only from USP, but also from several other institutions in Brazil and abroad. The main topics of work are the epidemiology and control of malaria in urban and rural communities and maternal and child health in the Juruá Valley, including a broad line of research on gestational malaria immunopathology. The images below, authored by the photographer Alessandra Fratus (http://www.alessandrafratus.com/), illustrate one of these field projects, carried out in riverside communities of Rio Azul.

In addition, the laboratory is leading the Brazilian participation in the Amazonian International Center of Excellence in Malaria Research (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/amazonian-icemr), a consortium of researchers from the United States, Brazil and Peru. receives financial support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health, USA.