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Maria José von Paumgartten Deane
Maria José von Paumgartten Deane was born on July 24, 1916, in Belém do Pará, where she began her studies. Daughter of an Austrian father and a French mother, Maria Deane was brought up within strict principles and discipline. However, her familys impoverishment due to the First World War and her own observations about her sisters death by diphtheria shaped her differently. They made her believe she could alter the course of life she was taking.
She entered the school of medicine and surgery of Pará in 1936. During her course she did some work for the commission in charge of studying visceral leishmaniasis, from Serviço de Estudos de Grandes Endemias (Sege) of Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC). She remained in Sege until 1939, when she engaged in a campaign against Anopheles gambiae, accomplished in Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte.
In 1942 Maria Deane took over as an assistant in the parasitology department of Serviço Especial de Saúde Pública (Sesp), in Instituto Evandro Chagas, Belém, where she acted jointly to research about malaria and filariasis, performing studies in the Amazon, Espírito Santo and other states. Raised chief of Sesp parasitology section, she also developed researches on verminous diseases and leptospirosis. She was head of the entomology lab on a campaign to eradicate malaria, of the Health Ministry, until 1961, when she went to Instituto de Medicina Tropical of Universidade de São Paulo.
Maria Deane organized the microbiology and parasitology department of the medicine school of Taubaté (SP) in 1969, moving to Minas Gerais in 1971, where she performed a similar task at the zoology department of that state university. In 1976, invited by the Venezuelan government, she organized the parasitology department of the health sciences school, of Universidade de Carabobo. In 1980 she moved to IOC (Fiocruz) as an effective researcher of the protozoology department, where she also temporarily directed the electronic microscopy center. Soon afterwards she was raised chief of that department.
In 1986, Maria José Deane took office of vice-director of IOC and was responsible for restructuring its postgraduate course. She died on August 13, 1995 and is recognized as one of the most important Brazilian scientists of all times.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
17 July 2004 -
Date of issue
June 2003
