Nísia Trindade Lima: the trajectory of Fiocruz president

Nísia Trindade Lima has been president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) since 2017. She holds a PhD in Sociology (1997), a Master's in Political Science (1989), from the University Research Institute of Rio de Janeiro (Iuperj, current Iesp), and a degree in Social Sciences from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj, 1980). Her doctoral thesis entitled “Um Sertão Chamado Brasil” won the Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis in Sociology at Iuperj. Her intellectual work is a reference in the area of Brazilian social thought, history of science and public health. She was director of Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (1998-2005), a unit of Fiocruz, and vice president of  Education, Information and Communication (VPEIC) at Fiocruz (2011-2016). She was appointed today (12/22) by the Brazilian president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to be the first woman to head the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

Nísia Trindade Lima has been president of Fiocruz since 2017(phoyo: Nana Moraes)

A hallmark of her trajectory is the interdisciplinary work in international cooperation agreements. She coordinates the Zika Social Sciences Network, part of the Zika Alliance Network (2018); was a member of the WHO Global Action Plan working group (2018); the WHO advisory group for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda (2019); among others. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she also participated in several forums of transnational cooperation and co-chaired the Economic Recovery Steering Group, one of the groups of the UN Research Roadmap for the Recovery of COVID-19.

Nísia also led Fiocruz's actions in facing the pandemic. The Foundation, among other initiatives, created a new Hospital Center on the Manguinhos campus; increased national capacity to produce diagnostic kits and process test results; organized emergency actions with vulnerable populations; and became a WHO reference laboratory for COVID-19 in the Americas. It also created the COVID-19 Observatory, inaugurated the COVID-19 Biobank (BC19-FIOCRUZ) and established the Fiocruz Genomic Surveillance Network.

In the field of vaccines against COVID-19, Nísia coordinated Fiocruz's technology order agreement. With the conclusion of the technology transfer from AstraZeneca, Fiocruz became the first institution in Brazil to produce a vaccine against COVID-19 100% nationally. The Foundation has already provided the Ministry of Health with more than 200 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 and was selected by PAHO/WHO as a regional center for mRNA vaccines, which is still under development.

In December 2020, Nísia was elected a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) in the Social Sciences category. In September 2021, she became an independent member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) Board. She was also awarded the rank of Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honor of France. On January 1, 2022, she became a member of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). She received several Medals of Merit, such as the Oswaldo Cruz from the Brazilian Ministry of Health (2018) and the Celso Furtado Commendation (2022), among others.
All of Nísia Trindade Lima's work as a manager and intellectual is based on promoting the social value of science in Brazil and on carrying out actions that bring science closer to society.