Iniciativa Proxima: A Series of Workshops in Biomedical Sciences for Brazilians

Iniciativa Proxima, an organization launched in 2020 with the support of Yale University, allows young Brazilian students to become leaders in the field of biomedical sciences. Founded and directed by Marcelo Dietrich, Associate Professor at the Yale School of Medicine, it aims to connect talented young Brazilian scientists with accomplished researchers worldwide.

Iniciativa Proxima hosts a 10-month online, free program involving workshops with renowned scientists and career development sessions. Every year, the program receives hundreds of applications and selects approximately fifty talented Brazilian students to participate in this mentorship program.

The past two months, it hosted the first workshops of 2023-24, which will discuss topics such as applications to graduate school, access to opportunities and scholarships abroad, imposter syndrome, scientific careers in the industry, etc. One of the workshops, named “Making a Discovery,” invites scientists who have made significant scientific contributions to meet with students. Rafael Dai Pra da Luz, a Ph.D. candidate in Physiology at Yale working on the physiology of hibernation in ground squirrels in Elena Gracheva’s laboratory, is one of the leading graduate liaisons for Iniciativa Proxima and helped organize several of these events.

On Wednesday, August 23, Iniciativa Proxima hosted an online webinar on successful stories in non-academic careers with Dr. João Monteiro, editor of Nature Magazine. Organized in a Q&A format, it allowed students to ask Dr. Monteiro various questions regarding his academic path in an informal setting. Among others, Dr. Monteiro discussed the process of being admitted into a doctoral program in the United States, what life is like in a lab, and what he would have done differently throughout his career.

On September 6, mentors and mentees met to evaluate and discuss potential questions for the workshop with Dr. Luciano Marrafini the following month. Iniciativa Proxima graduate liaisons began by showcasing a thirty-minute informative presentation on Dr. Marrafini’s academic path and his work on CRISPR (Clustered Regulatory Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) as well as its biotechnological applications and limitations. Later, students met in breakout rooms to discuss potential questions to ask Dr. Marrafini at the next Iniciativa Proxima session.

Finally, on October 4, members of Iniciativa Proxima met with Argentinian researcher Dr. Luciano Marrafini, a Professor at Rockefeller University. Dr. Marrafini was one of the pioneers in the study of a system in bacteria called CRISPR, part of the natural defense system present in bacteria. During his postdoctoral training, he found that CRISPR targets DNA. His impactful discovery made CRISPR the most common genetic editing process available in scientific research.

Dr. Marrafini began by discussing his childhood in Argentina and what sparked his interest in science: space, planets, astrophysics, and, perhaps surprisingly, their connections to contemporary magazines and movies. Studying in Rosario, Argentina — his hometown — and seeing what was possible beyond the Argentinian scope inspired Marrafini to study in the United States. “You can’t be afraid to be wrong,” Marrafini noted concerning the difficulties of studying and working outside of one’s native country.

The session made ample time for questions ranging from technical, academic, and career advice to how to develop a mindful work-life balance. A series of quick, rapid-fire questions were crowd-favorites: Who is your favorite scientist? (“My PhD mentor,” Marrafini replied.) Who is your favorite soccer player? (Messi, of course.) Whether discussing the publication process, soccer, or how not to bring lab work home, Dr. Marrafini’s answers were always direct, honest, and thoughtful.

When asked about advice he would give to young Latin American scholars hoping to conduct research in the United States, Dr. Marrafini replied: “Don’t worry too much. I worried a lot about what was going to happen; I left Argentina with my wife and son, and it was all very uncertain. I was worried about all the things that could go wrong. Really, I shouldn’t have worried that much. I would have enjoyed the pathway of my PhD a little bit more. At the same time, and at the age that a lot of you are, it’s age-appropriate, as they say here, to have career anxieties. It’s what’s important to you right now, what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, if you’ll get the opportunities. Every decision that you make matters. And it’s perfectly normal to have those anxieties. That said, if I could do it all again, I would try not to worry as much as I did.”

Iniciativa Proxima has imade an impact in many students enrolled in the program. Several have received Educational awards, such as EnsinaBrasil; launched their startups; and even switched careers. Throughout the mentorship program, Iniciativa Proxima supports students interested in applying to graduate school. Some from the Classes of 2021 and 2022 are now graduate students in Brazil (Ph.D. positions without previous master’s experience), the United States, and Europe, and many others are enrolled in competitive graduate programs at the University of Rio de Janeiro, Yale, Northwestern, Rockefeller, Columbia, and the University of Bern.

To learn more about Iniciativa Proxima and its fantastic opportunities, click here.

By Inês Forjaz de Lacerda, Graduate Communications Fellow, ines.lacerda@yale.edu