Brazilian immunology: One hundred years later

Brazilian immunology dates from the end of the 19(th) century. The aim of t he present paper was to analyze the impact of this field in contemporary Br azilian biomedical research. For this, a 15 years period (1981-1995) was st udied. Production of immunological articles in Brazil represented in 1995 a percentage of 8.66 of total papers in biomedical sciences in this country. This level was achieved by an exponential increase in 1991 in the number o f papers in immunology followed by a steady increase in the subsequent year s. This growth was only observed in articles published in international imm unology journals listed by ISI, a similar increase did not occur when the m ost representative Brazilian journal in biomedical sciences was analyzed. T he production in immunology in the last five years (1991-1995) represented 60.69% of total articles in this field published in the whole 15 years peri od. When quality was assessed based on impact factor of the journals were t he articles appeared, 52.71% of total immunology papers had been published in journals with impact factors varying between 7.29 and 3.24. A higher deg ree of international co-authorship was seen both in articles published in i nternational journals and presentations at international congresses compare d to national ones. The main countries collaborating with Brazil were: EUA. England and France. Within Brazil, immunology research was not equally dis tributed. Around 80% of the articles were produced by four states (Sao Paul o, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Bahia). Sao Paulo being responsible for more than half of those articles. This geographic distribution closely res embles the distribution of the Brazilian Society of Immunology (SBI) member ship. The main field of study throughout the period was immunoparasitotogy.