Journal of Emerging and Rare Diseases

Paulo R. Z. Antas

Designation: Professor

Department: Laboratory of Clinical Immunology

Institution: Oswaldo Cruz Institute- Fiocruz

Country: Brazil

Dr. Paulo Antas is a Professor of Biology and an Associate Researcher. He completed both MSc and Ph.D. at FIOCRUZ, Brazil. His wrote Book chapters and e-books. In the last 5 years, he has been working in a group that develops research on the field of clinical immune response of vaccinations against human Tuberculosis (TB), especially for cellular immunology area. Most of his scientific time is currently dedicated to study several aspects of immune response in TB, such as the involvement of inflammatory cytokines, and T cells on the immune response to Mycobacterium as a whole. As a result, he has accumulated significant data and thus experience in this field. He spent time on working in projects related to cytokine detection in patients with prior extrapulmonary TB, comparing them to those responses among persons with either pulmonary or latent infection. Therefore, accumulated data have shown defects in resting cytokine production, and have noted lower CD4 counts in HIV-seronegative patients. Primarily, these results provide evidence of defects in innate immune responses and the group published a paper raising the hypothesis of possible genetic predisposition to these immunologic defects. This work in genetics has provided him with yet another laboratory skill set that has been complementing the skills he has gained in TB immunology thus far. In addition, he has been working on innate immune response against TB in individuals naturally exposed to Mycobacterium tuberculosis at FIOCRUZ since 2007.