UFPE fire prompts investigation as researchers count losses

UFPE fire prompts investigation as researchers count losses
A large fire at the Federal University of Pernambuco’s Directorate of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Recife has drawn both a federal call for a thorough investigation and attention to the research losses left behind.

Jorge Messias, Brazil’s attorney general, said he had asked the Federal Prosecutor General’s Office to create a commission to follow the inquiry and take legal steps if warranted. Expressing solidarity with the university community, he said he expected the episode to receive “a rigorous investigation.” The cause of the fire has not been disclosed, and no official injuries were reported.

The university-focused account emphasizes what was damaged: equipment, samples and materials used in academic research. The blaze was concentrated on the building’s upper floor, which housed laboratories in chemistry, biology, pharmacy and computing, as well as therapeutic-innovation research. The reported losses included samples connected to studies of cancer, obesity, Covid-19, autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

UFPE rector Alfredo Gomes said the institution had lost “a considerable quantity of equipment and samples linked to master’s dissertations and doctoral theses.” That assessment places the immediate focus on the disruption to ongoing scholarship, whereas Messias’s intervention centers on ensuring institutional oversight of the investigation.

Both accounts agree that the origin of the blaze remains undetermined and that the incident was the third fire recorded at UFPE within a week. Earlier fires damaged a physics laboratory and the Laboratory of Cytogenetics and Plant Evolution; none of the three incidents reportedly caused injuries.

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