This book provides an overview of the XI International Congress on Medical and Applied Malacology: Crossing boundaries: Integrative Approaches to Malacology. The event was held at the State University of Rio de Janeiro between the 25th and 29th of September 2012. A number of the plenary lecturers from the conference were invited to contribute their papers to these proceedings, as were speakers whose papers were eligible for student awards. The volume contains articles on bioprospecting methods; medical malacology; aquaculture; biomonitoring; alien species; reproductive and developmental biology; interdisciplinary teaching and education; and trends in malacological research. The information contained here will convey to the general public the importance of mollusks to human and animal health, as well as their applications in various areas of knowledge.
About the Author: Ana Rita de Toledo-Piza received her PhD in Biotechnology from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sao Paulo, and her MSc from the Coordination for Disease Control (SES / SP). She is currently a Post-doctoral Researcher at Butantan Institute, combining the study of mollusks with the bioprospecting of antiviral and antifungal compounds. She has experience of working in the areas of chemical compounds and macromolecules and bioprospecting of chemical compounds from mollusks, while she is also interested in zoology, microbiology, biochemistry, cell biology, virology, and molecular phylogeny. Lenita de Freitas Tallarico studied Biological Sciences at Mackenzie University. She received a PhD and an MSc in Nuclear Technology from the Nuclear Energy Research Institute at the CNEN-University of Sao Paulo. She is currently a Collaborating Researcher and Post-doctoral student in the Department of Structural and Functional Biology at the Institute of Biology, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and the Butantan Institute. She has experience of working in the areas of ecotoxicology and malacology, acting principally in research on the molecular and morphological phylogeny of bivalves, reproduction, biomarkers, bioindicators, environmental monitoring and natural products. Gisele Orlandi Introini is a Brazilian biologist whose scientific fields of study are electron microscopy and cytogenetics of marine bivalves. She currently works as Professor at the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre. She received her Bachelor's from the State University of Sao Paulo, while her Master's, Doctoral and Post-Doctoral studies were carried out at the State University of Campinas. Her current primary area of investigation is focused on the ultra-structural description of gametes of important taxonomical groups of mollusks. Sonia Barbosa dos Santos received her Licentiate and Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the State University of Rio de Janeiro in 1978 and 1979, her MSc in Zoology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1984, and her PhD in Zoology from the University of Sao Paulo in 1995. She is Associate Professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Besides researching and teaching Zoology and Malacology at graduate and post-graduate level, she develops extension projects on teaching biological sciences at fundamental school. She has served as President of the Brazilian Society of Malacology since 2001.