Fungos, instituições, máquinas e pessoas em negociação : o percurso do fármaco P-Mapa / Fungi, institutions, machines and people in negotiation : the course of the P-Mapa drug

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

16/03/2010

RESUMO

This work describes the diversity of human and non-humans actors - fungi, physicians, veterinarians, mice, chickens, dogs, patients, academic researchers, lawyers, non-governmental organizations, businessmen, funding agency heads, ad hoc referees, ministers, ministry officers, journalists, viruses, bacteria, and computers - who have met and separated, connected and split up, and moved into wider or narrower networks along the construction of the P-Mapa compound. The action strategies adopted by the protagonists were also diverse. Initially, the physician Odilon da Silva Nunes worked for almost 40 years in a private laboratory, away from formal science research centers, to develop and test a molecule that could block tumors, according to his own hypothesis about the origin of cancer. The research advanced through the collective work of other physicians and both non-academic and academic researchers who evaluated the compound s properties according to the regulation of drug development; they scaled up the production and tested the compound on a group of HIV-positive people. The P-Mapa, by rebuilding the body s natural defenses, showed a rare versatility, attacking tumors, viruses, bacteria and protozoa in experimental animal models and early testing on humans. Next, unable to forge alliances with pharmaceutical companies that could produce the compound, the research group reorganized, grew internationally and focused the research on infectious diseases, especially the most common in poor countries, such as AIDS and tuberculosis. Examined through Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the development of the P-Mapa highlights the role of mediators to bring together dispersed skills with common goals to achieve collective benefits. This compound s course from discovery to the early stage of human trials illustrates innovative ways to produce scientific knowledge in Brazil

ASSUNTO(S)

medicamentos p-mapa drug development p-mapa

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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