I really need to update this more frequently...

I haven’t been very good about updating this blog so this will be a long entry, don’t worry there are pictures…

Natal
I didn’t have to work most of this week thanks to the festival of São João. Actually, I thought I had the whole week off until I got a text at 7:30 Thursday morning from Sergio saying he was at my apt to pick me up for work! Anywyas, the fun São João parties apparently happen in the interior of Bahia but none of my friends had plans to go! I couldn’t waste a perfectly good (partial) week off so I booked a flight to go visit Pooja in Natal for a long weekend. Pooja and I have been friends since freshman year at Northwestern. She just finished her first year of med school at Iowa and is spending her summer doing research or visceral leishmaniasis in Natal.

I got in on Friday night, went straight to a Forro (a traditional northeastern dance), drank a few too many caipirinhas and stayed up most of the night catching up on life with Pooja. It was an excellent evening!

Along with three other med students, we spent Saturday and Sunday in a cute vacation town called Pipa, about an hour and a half outside of Natal. There were fun shops, fantastic restaurants and beautiful beaches… it was a wonderful change of pace from the very urban Salvador! I took a surfing lesson on Sunday and despite my sore muscles and a few bruises, I’m hooked! I was able to stand on the board and ride into the shore twice! The waves in Salvador are great so I’m hoping I can continue to learn how to surf here!

A view of the beach we learned to surf at
Our boards
The walk to the beach
Our hostel

I spent Monday and Tuesday working with the team of med students on their visceral leishmaniasis project. We drove out to rural towns outside of Natal, gave questionnaires and physical exams to former VL cases and their family members. Pooja and her roommate Alex taught me how to take a patient’s blood pressure and explained all of the parts of their physical exam to me. I got to help administer their questionnaire, which was great experience since my own project has a questionnaire component! I made myself useful by teaching them Epi Info (a data entry/analysis program) and by rambling on about biostats and epi…I was in nerd heaven ☺

Aside from fieldwork, we managed to stuff ourselves nightly with delicious seafood, walk around the boardwalk and explore Natal. I somehow managed to forget to take pictures of people in Natal (thankfully Pooja has some which means they’ll be on facebook by 2012), but I’ve put some pictures of the beaches in Natal below. It’s a really lovely, low-key city. I really liked it, although I was happy to return to the very urban Salvador (I am a city girl at heart).

The beach in Natal
The boardwalk in Natal

Research:
I still have no antigen. Long story short, there’s some Brazilian import law that states that you can’t bring anything into Brazil that is kept cold for any reason (I think I have that right…), even if it’s for research! What a ridiculous law! Apparently the head of all of Fiocruz from Rio is meeting with the head of ANVISA (the people who enforce health surveillance) and there’s some talk of trying to get the law changed.

The antigen is also being tested back in the US at SF General. They ran the mce1A test and the existing quantiferon (QFT) test on four cases of active TB. There was no cytokine response in any of the four patients, which indicates that something was wrong with the peptides themselves, the buffer, the blood sample, etc. Dr. Riley’s people in the US are troubleshooting and hopefully we’ll have new and improved peptide by the end of July (when Dr. Riley comes to Salvador with more antigen).

Since I won’t actually be starting the mce1A project until late July, I’ll be working on a couple other TB projects in the mean time. I’m pretty sure I’ll be running QFT’s of people who stopped latent TB treatment and working on follow-up study looking for people who enrolled but didn’t finish a latent TB treatment study. I’m pretty excited about both projects! I’ve spent the last couple weeks (when we didn’t have holidays) working on an NIH grant to help fund the mce1A project. While not the most exciting of jobs, it’s been a good experience to learn about some of the components that go into grant writing.

Life in Salvador:

I really need to update this blog more often…I’m starting to forget things I’ve done! Salvador is starting to feel more like home and less like I’m on a long vacation where I also happen to be doing work. I finally figured out how to turn on my oven (without blowing up my apartment)!
A week or so ago I spent the day exploring Pelourinho, a historic neighborhood with lots of churches and brightly colored houses. Pelourinho was nice but very touristy! I got a tour guide to tell me all about the churches and buildings and ate some delicious Baihan food. My next goal is to find a place to rent surfboards and perhaps get another lesson...and my cousin Michaela arrives tomorrow for a volunteer program in Salvador! Yay!!!
The view from of Modelo Mercado from Pelourinho
Painted houses in Pelourinho
Sao Francisco Church