Carolina Luisa Alves Barbieri
Pediatrician and Ph.D. in Health Sciences from the University of São Paulo, mother of two girls. Carolina Barbieri is a scientist dedicated to public health, involved in vaccine development and clinical trials of vaccines in populations. Working at Instituto Butantan since 2021, Barbieri is responsible for the medical component of clinical research—studies that ensure the safety and efficacy of new medications under development. At the Center for Research and Development of Immunobiologicals (CeRDI), the scientist is evaluating several influenza vaccines in production.
Currently, she helps develop influenza vaccines with adjuvants—substances included in the immunizing agent to enhance the body's immune response. Her research program also includes an important challenge: studying how the use of adjuvants can improve the immune response in older adults who, through the process of senescence, generally have a deficient immune response to vaccination. This study is being developed with seven other scientists from four prestigious institutions: University of São Paulo, University of Connecticut, University of Texas Medical Branch, and Health Science North Research Institute.
Carolina Barbieri's entire personal and professional career path is connected to her current work. Always passionate about knowledge, she shares that she chose medicine with an almost romantic view of care. That is, a medicine focused more on the individual's development than on treating problems. “I've always liked thinking about health, not disease. That's also what fascinates me about vaccines and public health,” she states.
Published in 2014, her doctoral dissertation anticipated a concerning fact: the drop in vaccination rates seen in Brazil starting in 2016 due to parents failing to immunize their children. Produced from the study of upper-class families in São Paulo, the work helped guide the Ministry of Health's National Immunization Program (PNI) in subsequent years. Meanwhile, her current research with CeRDI works to ensure greater and better protection against the influenza virus for people of all ages.
