History

Pharmacology at Unicamp has a history of more than fifty years. At the beginning of the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM), there weren't many postgraduate programs. FCM had the “Cursão”, and the programs only accepted medical students. However, in the Pharmacology Program, the students weren't doctors, so the professors who supervised the master's and doctorate programs came from other Biology programs at Unicamp or Pharmacology at USP. In this way, the Unicamp Pharmacology Graduate Program (PPG) was a pioneer in allowing non-medical students at FCM to receive master's and doctoral training.

The history of pharmacology at Unicamp dates back to 1966, the year the university was founded. Dental surgeon Dr. Antonio Carlos Neder (1933-2019) defended his thesis “Release of acetylcholine by the venom of the scorpion Tityus serrulatus” at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Dentistry of Piracicaba, under the guidance of Dr. Oswaldo Vital Brazil (1912-2008), even before that faculty was incorporated into Unicamp, which happened the following year. Professor Neder continued his academic career in Piracicaba. In 1969, at the Institute of Biology, Maurício Gomes Lomba (1937-1969) defended his thesis “Studies on the distribution and excretion of crotoxin-131 I in dogs”, also under the supervision of Dr. Oswaldo Vital Brazil. In 1964, Maurício, who had recently graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry at the University of São Paulo, accompanied Professor Vital Brazil from USP to help set up the Department of Pharmacology at Unicamp as an instructor. In October 1966, the month Unicamp was officially founded, he took part in the foundation of the Brazilian Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (SBFTE), representing Vital Brazil. In 1971, in the magazine Universidade Estadual de Campinas, published by the Adolfo Lutz Academic Directory, Professor Vital Brazil wrote a text in memory of researcher Maurício Gomes Lomba, who died prematurely.

The master's course in Pharmacology began in 1989, and the PhD course in Pharmacology began in 1998. The Unicamp Pharmacology PPG was a pioneer in the Clinical Pharmacology research line, created by Prof. Dr. Gilberto De Nucci, with the first publication in 1993 on pharmacokinetics. The Clinical Pharmacology research line played a prominent role in the approval of new commercial pharmaceutical products, known as generics, through bioequivalence tests, impacting the health of the Brazilian population and opening up new business fields for various pharmaceutical companies. The PPG has had a major social impact with its contributions to drug regulation in Brazil, influencing many of the drugs used in the country to this day.