Molecular Diversity of Environmental Prokaryotes (ePub)

Amaro Emiliano Trindade Silva earned a BS in microbiology and immunology (2000) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He earned master's (2003) and PhD (2009) degrees in genetics at UFRJ, working with the symbiotic system between the Teredinidae family of wood-burrowing molluscs (shipworm) and the gamma-proteobacterial symbionts of the Teredinibacter clade, in the laboratory of Professor Dr. Carlos Soares. For 2006 to 2008, Dr. Amaro earned a scholarship from the Brazilian fellowship institution National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) to work as a visiting PhD student in the laboratory of Professor Dr. Margo Haygood at the Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon. During this groundbreaking experience, he was involved in the research area of natural products and drug discovery, which is now his major research interest. From 2010 to 2012, Dr. Amaro was a postdoctoral candidate at the University of São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil), under the supervision of Professors Dr. Roberto Berlinck and Dr. Fabiano Thompson. During this period, he developed skills on metagenomics, working with marine invertebrate microbiomes. With more than a dozen of articles published in scientific journals and extensive experience in the field of genetics, genomics, metagenomics, and microbial ecology, Dr. Amaro is a professor of the graduate program on pharmacology at the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. His group is based at the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Marine Bioprospecting (LaBBMAR; http://www.labbmar.ufc.br/), the Drug Development Building, Center for Research and Drug Development (NPDM), and his CNPq-granted projects concern the genetics of marine invertebrates-microorganisms symbiotic systems for mining microbial natural products biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Outside academia, Professor Amaro enjoys listening and playing Brazilian music, such as samba, chorinho, and forró, and he can often been seen drumming his tamborim or other musical instruments with his friends.