BactiVac Spotlight – Tatiana Pinto: How Speed Networking led to a 5-year international collaboration

The speed networking event that led to cross-country collaboration for BactiVac

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Tatiana Pinto, Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, tells us about the BactiVac networking opportunity that led to a five-year, international collaboration that continues to thrive to this day.

‘It was a life-changing encounter.’

Tatiana Pinto, Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Not long after the Network’s formation in 2017, Tatiana was recommended to join BactiVac by a colleague. When the BactiVac 2nd Annual Network Meeting was organised in 2019, Tatiana applied for, and was awarded, a BactiVac travel bursary to support her trip from Rio de Janeiro to Birmingham, UK.

‘I was only able to go due to the travel grant that BactiVac provided.’

It was at this meeting where Tatiana first met Stephen Taylor, during a ‘speed networking’ session. Participants made fast-paced introductions with dozens of other delegates, swapping contact details with potential collaborators. Tatiana shared that her lab had a large collection of Group B Streptococcus (GBS) strains stretching back to 2008, a rarity in the field of GBS, while Stephen had connections that he knew would be interested in working with them.

Speed networking: exchanging of contact details between Tatiana and Stephen at the BactiVac conference.

Speed networking: exchanging of contact details between Tatiana and Stephen

‘He opened a whole network of collaborations for me in the UK.’

They followed up their conversation via email and submitted a proposal to BactiVac’s Round 3 Catalyst Project Funding call in 2019. Following an initial rejection, vital feedback, and an improved application, Tatiana and Stephen were successfully awarded catalyst project funding in 2020. As a result of her new connections, Tatiana also became involved with a research project called Juno, a global survey of GBS led by another BactiVac member, Stephen Bentley.

The BactiVac-funded project continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and examined the misuse of antibiotics, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria that may emerge amongst pregnant people as a result. In the Rio population studied, it was found that there was a significant increase in the rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus and a fall of GBS. The results have since been published, as well as presented in national and international conferences, such as the American Society of Microbiology, Croatian Congress, and the Brazilian Conference on Microbiology.

After securing follow-on funding, the team looked to perform and standardise an opsonophagocytic killing assay (OPKA). This led to postdoctoral researcher, Tatiana’s former PhD student, Laura Oliveira, applying for a BactiVac Catalyst Training Award to visit Porton Down, a science and defence technology campus in Wiltshire, UK. Laura spent one month in the UK learning and optimising the OPKA, with the objective of sharing the knowledge back in Brazil.

‘It is a full-circle moment.’

The assay is now in its early stages of use in Tatiana’s lab in Brazil, overseen by PhD student, Eduardo de Oliveira Bressan, who is currently in the process of writing his thesis. With support from the Brazilian government (CAPES), he is soon to be spending 9 months at co-supervisor Stephen Taylor’s lab in the UK, over five years after Tatiana and Stephen’s initial meeting.

Reflecting on the journey, Tatiana tells us about one highlight being her appointment as conference co-lead for the International Symposium on ‘Streptococcus agalactiae’ Disease (ISSAD), 2023, hosted in Rio de Janeiro, which was attended by several BactiVac members. She now finds herself in a stronger position when entering new collaborations and feels that she can provide the experience and mentorship that was offered to her.

Publications:

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0817/11/10/1104

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-64422-9

Tatiana meeting her BactiVac peers at ISSAD 2023, Rio de Janeiro

Tatiana meeting her BactiVac peers at ISSAD 2023, Rio de Janeiro (Left to right: Stephen Taylor, Clare Collett, Tatiana Pinto, Andrew Gorringe, Stephen Thomas)