The Presidency of Fiocruz deeply regrets the passing, on Monday (April 28), of its Vice President of Production and Innovation in Health, Marco Aurélio Krieger. He had held the position since 2017. Krieger would have turned 61 next Sunday (May 4) and had been battling cancer. The wake will take place over two days: Wednesday (April 30), from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., and Thursday (May 1), from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., at the chapel of the Israelite Cemetery, in the Água Verde neighborhood of Curitiba, Paraná. A private ceremony for family members will follow. The cremation will take place at the Pinheiros Ceremonial Complex.
Marco Aurélio Krieger was Vice President of Production and Innovation in Health (photo: Peter Ilicciev)
Krieger earned a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) in 1987, followed by a master’s degree (1989) and a PhD (1997) in Biological Sciences (Biophysics) from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He served as Deputy Director of Technological Development, Prototyping, and Production at the Carlos Chagas Institute (ICC/Fiocruz Paraná), as coordinator of the Molecular Biology Institute of Paraná (IBMP), and as technical coordinator of Fiocruz’s Nucleic Acid Diagnostic Production Unit. At a young age, he played a key role in establishing Fiocruz Paraná and forging its alliance with IBMP, making a decisive contribution to building the Foundation’s scientific and technological presence in the state. He was the author of several publications, including six patents.
A recognized authority on immunization and vaccines, Krieger was one of the leading scientists featured extensively in media coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic—particularly concerning Anvisa’s emergency use authorization of the two vaccines developed by Fiocruz and Butantan. During that time, he frequently appeared on television and gave numerous interviews to the press about the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with AstraZeneca and Fiocruz. He played a key role in countering scientific denialism and the anti-vaccine movement. Krieger also had a significant role in leading Fiocruz’s Vaccine Committee.
A natural communicator, he represented Fiocruz in 2021 at a technical meeting organized by the External Committee for COVID-19 Response of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. On that occasion, he outlined the Foundation’s comprehensive efforts—from the early stages of vaccine prospecting at the onset of the pandemic. He explained the unique features of the project and its technical, legal, and regulatory complexity, highlighting the achievement of delivering it in record time.
Krieger was a passionate advocate for technological innovation and was always committed to incorporating new vaccines, medicines, and health products into Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS). As he often emphasized, “It is important to create an environment that fosters the development of technological innovation projects and encourages the entrepreneurial spirit of researchers.” Throughout his career, he dedicated himself to initiatives that aimed to expand public access to better vaccines and treatments through SUS and was a tireless defender of technology as a means to improve the health and well-being of the Brazilian people.
He played a crucial role in leading the calls for proposals under the Inova Fiocruz program. During his tenure as Vice President of Production and Innovation in Health, Fiocruz significantly strengthened its support for innovative and strategic public health research. Under Inova, he launched several funding calls for COVID-19-related research, including one open to all researchers—even those outside Fiocruz—focused on projects benefiting vulnerable populations. Tireless and always highly motivated, Krieger worked until his final days on the development of an mRNA platform. He was also responsible for introducing CAR-T cell technology to Fiocruz and was deeply enthusiastic about its potential to treat cancer and other rare diseases through SUS.
His position at Fiocruz led him to represent the Foundation in various international forums. In 2024, during a visit to Malaysia for a Dengue Alliance meeting, he participated in several activities where he discussed cooperation opportunities in mRNA vaccines and health innovation. He also supported the idea of forming a regional organization among Mercosur countries, based on Brazil’s Health Economic-Industrial Complex model, to promote and strengthen regional production—thus reducing external dependence on strategic health products.
Also in 2024, Krieger traveled to China at the invitation of the Shanghai International Life Science Innovation Campus to present Fiocruz projects and engage with companies developing vaccines and advanced therapies. Among these, he highlighted immuno-oncology as the most promising field—whether through monoclonal antibodies that enhance the immune system’s ability to detect malignant cells, or through techniques that program immune cells to recognize cancer-specific markers and destroy those cells. This can be achieved by inducing the expression of receptors that identify cancer markers on immune cells.
Upon signing a Strategic Alliance Agreement in 2023 that expanded and deepened Fiocruz’s collaboration with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), Krieger remarked, “The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of local contributions in addressing the problems that affect our region. We did this with Chagas disease. Fiocruz’s history shows how Brazilian and Latin American science have contributed to tackling diseases that were once regional challenges. It is this spirit that we want to revive.” He also reflected on Fiocruz’s historical leadership in combating arboviruses and recalled its efforts in the fight against yellow fever.
In the field of arboviruses, the IBMP—established through a partnership between Fiocruz and the state government of Paraná—received Anvisa approval in 2019 for the ZDC molecular test (for Zika, Dengue, and Chikungunya). Krieger, who had supported the project from its early stages and was a strong advocate of the initiative, said at the time that the tool “is an important advancement in addressing the challenge of achieving more accurate diagnosis of arboviral diseases. The use of molecular methods is one of the main tools for diagnosis due to its high sensitivity and specificity, and it also plays a crucial role in epidemiological studies aimed at surveillance and control efforts for these diseases.”
Always articulate and thoughtful, Krieger carried science in his DNA. His father, Ernesto Krieger, was a geneticist from Curitiba and a professor at the University of Brasília (UnB). Because his father earned a PhD in the United States, Marco Aurélio Krieger was born there. His mother, Ester Proveler, was the sister of Fani Lerner—wife of the renowned urban planner Jaime Lerner, who served as governor of Paraná and mayor of Curitiba. A devoted father to two children (Mariana and Gabriel) and a loving grandfather to two granddaughters (Clara and Serena), Krieger took great pride in the family he built with his wife, Lina Krieger. In his youth, he had a unique hobby: he enjoyed cultivating the land and growing organic fruits and vegetables on a family farm.