This Monday 5th October the course Mouth, Gut, Health: An Interdisciplinary Journey was started, it is taught by the Brazilian Juliano Morimoto Borges, a young PhD student at the University of Oxford. The course is taking place at the Training Room of the Technological Innovation Park (PIT, Parque de Innovación Tecnológica), belonging to the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa), from 15:00 to 18:00 hours, and will end on Friday 9th. The inauguration was attended by 42 university students, 34 undergraduates, 5 master’s and 3 PhD’s, coming from the UAS’ schools and faculties related to health: Dentistry, Psychology, Nutrition and Gastronomy, Bio-Chemicals Sciences and Medicine.

As part of the reception and welcome to Morimoto Borges, on behalf of the UAS’ Rector, PhD Juan Eulogio Guerra Liera, PIT-UAS’ Director, MBA José Ramón López Arellano, stated: “Counting with the presence of the researcher Morimoto is an honor to us, since it implies creating with him a bond which will help us to interlace both Universities. At his disposal, there will be UAS’ professionals who are researchers of his field and whose knowledge he will be able to make the most of, so we can begin such bond which —at short and medium term— could lead both institutions to the development of joint investigations. In addition, to you, university students of this house of studies, it is the opportunity of making the most out of this type of researches”.

PIT-UAS’ Director emphasized that the organization he presides has the objective of making science, technology and innovation the key to reach the economic development, both regional and global. In this context, Morimoto’s course is an action that is part of the institutional strategy of linkage, which allows students to have access to specialized training and at the same time helps researchers to have a higher social impact.

Previously to the first session, in interview, the Brazilian PhD student said that during the five days of the course’s duration the topics which compose it would be presented in theoretical and practical manners: “Theoretically, given that the students come from different disciplines, I’ll give them a brief background on bio-chemistry, carbohydrates, proteins’ structure and so on, until we get to microbiota in general. Then we’ll have the practices: students will develop interdisciplinary thinking —and this is actually the culminating part of the course—, task to which they’re not commonly trained to”. In the course’s schedule also excel the subject “Microbiota, Cavity and Obesity”, as well as the online interview with the Brazilian professor and PhD Elaine M. Benelli, head of the interdisciplinary project Promoting Oral Health (Curitiba, Brazil).

During his first visit to our country, the PhD student at the University of Oxford specified that his course’s main objective consists in: “… showing to the students the importance of an interdisciplinary approach… and help them to develop this type of thinking. […] The idea of this course is to make students think outside of that comfort zone that they’re in, and to consider other inputs”.

By last, it is noteworthy that during his stay in Culiacán (Sinaloa, Mexico) Morimoto will have academic exchange sessions with a medical research team, UAS’ personnel from the Medicine Faculty, investigators who count on important progress in regard to the Brazilian’s investigation topic within the University of Oxford. As a tangible product of these investigations, belonging to the British and the Mexican institutions, its achieved knowledge could be jointly applied in the development of a prototypical nutritional supplement to help in obesity treatment.

Written and translated by Belem Ruiz (Edition and Communication, PIT-UAS).