Geneticist Chana Malogolowkin-Cohen, 97, died on Sunday morning (20), in Tel Aviv, Israel, as a result of a stroke.
Daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and born in Minas Gerais in 1924, the researcher left an important legacy for Brazilian and world genetics.
His research paved the way for experiments that contaminate the mosquito aedes aegypti with a bacterium that prevents it from transmitting dengue, zika, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses.
The scientist was one of the pioneers in Drosophila genetics (fruit flies) in Brazil. Flies are used as model animals in genetic research.
In the 1940s and 1950s, she worked at the universities of São Paulo (USP) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She continued her career in the United States and Israel.
She was the first Brazilian to publish an article in the prestigious scientific journal Science, in 1957. In the study, of worldwide repercussion, she described a factor that reduced the proportion of births of males, in relation to females, in the offspring of Drosophila. She found that this change could be transmitted to other flies.
Years later, it was revealed that this factor was, in fact, a bacterium that infected the flies, explained biologist and historian Miguel Oliveira, from Fiocruz (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz).
The discovery opened up a new field of research, said the biologist. Similar bacteria, of the wolbachia genus, are currently being injected into female mosquitoes. Aedes aegypti. They spread among mosquitoes and block the multiplication of dengue, zika and other viruses in insect bodies, helping to reduce the transmission of these diseases.
The experiments are carried out in 11 countries through the World Mosquito Program consortium. In Brazil, Fiocruz conducts the project in four states.
Selma Ciornai, the geneticist’s niece, said that when she was a child her aunt took her to see the fruit flies under microscopes in the laboratory in downtown Rio (now UFRJ). “She had these long leather boots that she used to go camping and look for flies and she would ask us to collect flies at home, attracting them with bananas,” recalls Selma.
Malogolowkin-Cohen was also the first woman to obtain a doctorate in natural history in the country, in 1951. In 1958, she went to work at Columbia University (USA), at the invitation of the renowned biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, whom she later replaced after he retired.
He married in 1964 and moved to Israel, where he continued his research and helped establish the department of genetics and the institute of evolution at the University of Haifa.
Although he has very relevant contributions to national and international science, his legacy is little known in Brazil. Chana Malogolowkin-Cohen is survived by daughter and grandchildren.
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