Mining the “new gold” of California: research, innovation and entrepreneurship. We have built a strong alliance with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) that has provided us with a direct connection to one of the top places for biological research and entrepreneurship in the world. This program has nurtured not only our advanced training programs but also our entrepreneurial and science culture activities.

In partnership with the Institut Curie (France), we organized the “Advanced Course on Immunity and Cancer Immunotherapy 2024” held in Santiago at the CCV in November 2024. This four-day event featured 18 experts from France, Argentina, and Chile discussing the latest advances in immunity, cancer immunotherapy, and related cell biology. The course was designed for MSc and PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from Latin America, offering opportunities to present research, participate in workshops on open science and scientific integrity, and join a career path roundtable. This course was paired with the “3rd Franco-Austral Course on Bioinformatics Applied to Immunology” held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from October 30th to November 2nd 2024. This hands-on course covered single-cell transcriptomics, proteomics, and essential computational tools for immunology research. Both courses sought to enhance students’ skills, promote active learning, and encourage international collaboration. Registration was free, and travel fellowships were available for attendees of both events.

We have recently established a new institutional collaboration ageement with Universitat de Barcelona to strengthen research partnerships between our institutions by facilitating the exchange of PhD students and the internships of researchers. We are set to welcome the first cohort of students during the fourth year of our Center’s development plan, marking a pivotal step towards fostering our international alliances.

We formalized a new collaboration with Syracuse University, NY, USA, by welcoming our first exchange student.

A unique Latin American initiative to create a Center for Innovation in Disease Modeling and Outbreak Analytics. In early 2023, representatives from North and South America met in Santiago, Chile, to discuss data analytics and forecasting in public health. The event, organized in collaboration with the U.S. CDC’s South America Regional Office (SAMRO), the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA), and the Global Health Center (GHC), led to the formation of a Community of Practice (CoP) focused on outbreak analytics and disease modeling (OADM). In May 2023, the CDC announced funding for an Outbreak Response Network. In response to the CoP, Ciencia & Vida led the formation of a network involving seven South American countries, creating the ECLIPSE Consortium, which aims to create an ecosystem to innovate in OADM. Although the project was initially classified as ‘approved but not funded’, partial funding allowed work to begin in November 2023. By August 2024, we secured over US$ 614,000 in seed funding, with additional support anticipated from the CDC SAMRO and other donors. The ECLIPSE Consortium seeks to revolutionize OADM by harnessing data science, computational modeling, and AI to create a global, collaborative ecosystem. This will support decision-making based on evidence, and improve public health and outbreak response. As the consortium has grown, Ciencia & Vida has partnered with nearly 80 individuals across nine Latin American countries and the USA, including agencies like the CDC and the Panamerican Health Organization (PAHO). The CDC is also helping to expand the ECLIPSE Consortium, initially through its Middle East and North Africa Regional Office and InsightNet (USA) to build a global pandemic preparedness network.