São Paulo – A daughter of Lebanese immigrants to Brazil, Soraya Smaili is the first woman, first non-physician, and the youngest-ever president of the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). On the final year of her stint in the highest position in the university, she sits atop a bevy of achievements in research and in fighting Covid-19. She’s leading testing by the University of Oxford in Brazil, and she’s pushing for democracy and transparency in state-run universities. She’s also the founder of the Institute of Arab Culture (ICArabe), which has promoted Arab and Muslim culture in Brazil in the last 16 years through film festivals, art shows, lectures and other activities.
She has been president of the Unifesp for over seven years now, and her term is set to end in April 2021. She holds a degree in Pharmacy and master’s, doctorate and postdoctorate degrees is Pharmacology. A professor at Escola Paulista de Medicina (the São Paulo Medical School), she was the first-ever president-elect under 50 years of age.
“Looking back, I can tell that we sped things up. It was a combination of several factors, lots of experience, plus our own time,” she says. Smaili found herself working under a much less formal dynamic than her predecessors. She kept her ear to the ground and engaged in constant dialogue with the community.
Her work as president led to increased budgetary transparency and gender parity in the highest positions. Unifesp offers 54 graduate courses and 74 postgraduate, master’s, and doctorate courses, plus over 100 specialization programs with more than 8,000 students between them. Overall, some 23,000 students attend the university.
“Our plan was to have a more democratic university, to make improvements at every level, and we also included technicians from every field in the vice presidents’ offices. We also brought in many women, because the administration that preceded me had just one woman in a high-ranking position. Now, we have 60% to 70% women in high positions. That was really important. Now we have women as vice presidents, as academic directors, and as technicians,” she said.
The Covid-19 pandemic caused Unifesp to switch to 100% distance learning, but that’s a temporary move. “We believe that actually being at the university is really important to one’s education,” she said. According to her, it’s hard to achieve the sharing experiences that take place in class when you’re in the digital realm. Smaili works for democratization and for greater student participation, with public hearings and budget transparency, including open hearings where expenditures can be questioned. “It’s public money, after all,” she said.
In her capacity as president, Smaili is also concerned with the quality of research and extension courses. “We work really hard to improve our teaching. We are constantly ranked among the top universities in the country. When it comes to research, depending on the parameters, we’re number one, because our rate of papers published per professor is really high. It’s even higher than that of the USP (University of São Paulo) in some cases. We made massive strides in research.”
The university’s social work was also Smaili’s doing. “We have many social projects, continuing education projects, services rendered to trans people and to refugees. Our university also transformed itself to support healthcare professionals, who struggled a great deal when the pandemic struck.”
Pandemic and research
When the coronavirus pandemic hit Brazil, Smaili created a permanent committee to fight Covid-19 at the university, recreating and rearranging structures to take on the new virus. “Based on studies by infectious disease specialists, we took steps to prepare ourselves. We purchased more beds and respirators, we had donation campaigns and we worked on getting funding. The entire community joined in. We rearranged the hospital (Unifesp’s Hospital São Paulo) to care for the population.” The state-run Hospital São Paulo provides free care under the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde – SUS).
Unifesp issued specific calls for entry for researchers studying Covid-19. According to Smaili, these projects are looking into pharmaceuticals, inpatient treatment approaches, and testing of the Oxford Vaccine, which Unifesp is handling in Brazil. At least fifteen clinical research projects involving new drugs and ICU patients are on the verge of completion. Smaili explains that 80% of Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic, and out of the 20% of symptomatic ones, at least 10% develop a bad case of the disease.
That’s why she believes a vaccine alone is not enough. “There needs to be antiviral and anti-inflammatory medication. Heparin was the first drug we saw that led to lower mortality rates. Then you had corticoids, which we determined that leads to less time spent in respirators for patients. We need good drugs that will help them get better,” she said. The university is also conducting research into diagnosing the disease, including new swab-based testing. “The PCR test, which is done on the throat, is really unpleasant.”
As a researcher, Smaili is deeply involved in a project that looks into estrogen as a protection against coronavirus infection, in lung and intestine cell cultures. “We are studying the ability of estrogen and other drugs to inhibit Covid-19. There is hard evidence that women are less vulnerable to the disease.”
Vaccine
Unifesp is coordinating testing of the Oxford Vaccine in Brazil. Nearly 10,000 volunteers have been getting either the vaccine or a placebo since last June. “The Oxford Vaccine testing is going well, and it has brought many benefits to Unifesp, because we have been able to cater to more people and to position the university as a reference in this field. It gave us more visibility.”
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) is going to manufacture the Oxford Vaccine in Brazil in partnership with Unifesp. The announcement was made this week that vaccination will begin by early 2021. At first, vaccines made by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical conglomerate AstraZeneca will be imported. Fiocruz will start manufacturing at a later date.
According to Smaili, the advantage of the Oxford Vaccine is that data have been published in scientific journals; it can be stored in regular refrigerators at 4 degrees Celsius; and each bottle is enough for twenty shots. Smaili argues that Brazil is ready to distribute vaccines like Oxford’s when it comes to refrigeration and multi-dose requirements.
She also claims that the Oxford Vaccine is the cheapest. Smaili is optimistic that there’ll be enough vaccine to go around, but she expects it to be a while before full immunization comes. “Will there be enough vaccine for everyone? Yes. But will everyone be immunized by May 2021? No, that’s an illusion,” she said.
Presidency
Her path to becoming university president began when she embarked on her academic life. “I have always been about science, teaching, academic work. And then I’ve always been very active in student councils, in university politics, ever since I was a student.”
Smaili has chaired professors’ associations. She served as representative of the university council for seven straight terms, and she would always be the most voted professor. “I really enjoy talking to people and coming up with solutions. In order for you to have quality science and teaching, you need a democratic institution where people can participate. You need transparency. That process happened over the course of a few years.”
Arab background
Soraya Soubhi Smaili was born in São Paulo, Brazil to Lebanese parents from Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. “My father came in 1951 and my mother in 1955. They married here in Brazil and they had four children – three boys and me, the youngest.” Her father was a traveling salesman who later turned merchant and at one point owned a furniture shop. Her mother helped with the family business. According to Smaili, both were great tradespersons who drove a hard bargain.
“My parents made a point of having us go to school and graduate. They never demanded anything from us but to get a formal education, and that made a world of difference to me. It was important for me to blaze a trail for my closest cousins and other girls in the community to follow, because being from a deeply religious Muslim family, that used to be taboo a few years back. Society was more restricted in those days.”
In pursuing the path to knowledge, Smaili took an interest in Arab culture. She had the chance to go to Lebanon a few times, and that drew her closer to the culture that birthed her.
“I am a Brazilian first and foremost. That much has always been abundantly clear to me. But later on, after college, I became really interested in reading and studying about Arab culture and the Palestinian cause.”
In 2004, she and her husband Francisco Miraglia established the Institute of Arab Culture (ICArabe), a go-to source on Arab and Muslim culture in Brazil. The institute’s work includes seminars, studies, articles, Arab film festivals and a newsletter, among other activities.
In her free time, Smaili likes to read – especially biographies – and to watch movies. “I like Arab cinema a lot. I know a bit about it. I like studying Arab cinema, and I also like to write about Arab culture. I derive great pleasure from writing.”
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
