Date: November 26th and 27th.
Location: Auditorium 4 of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at UFMG.
The Annus Caroli event was held in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years of the publication of “The Origin of Species”, in addition to the centenary of the publication of Carlos Chagas’ article on Chagas Disease and 130 years of his birth . The event was attended by researchers from different areas.
Among the topics covered: the evolution of the brain (Roberto Lent, UFRJ), the role of toxins in predator-prey co-evolutionary systems (Paulo Sérgio Beirão, UFMG), the creation of drugs (Robson Santos, UFMG), the evolution of mitochondria ( Aníbal Vercesi, Unicamp), the role of natural selection in pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics (Guilherme Kurtz, UFRJ), the Big Bang, the evolution of the cosmos (Beatriz Barbuy, USP), the origin of life on Earth (Carlos Menck, USP), the importance of research on Trypanosoma cruzi and Chagas Disease in the evolution of Brazilian science (Carlos Morel, Fiocruz), advances in the ultrastructure of T. cruzi (Wanderley de Souza, UFRJ) and the interaction between the parasite and the vector ( Eloi Garcia, Fiocruz). There was also a discussion of innate immunity to infection with T. cruzi (Ricardo Gazzinelli, UFMG) and two lectures that addressed different aspects of the immunopathogenesis of the disease (Mauro Teixeira, UFMG, and Rodrigo Corrêa-Oliveira, Fiocruz). To close the event, a mini-conference focused on the story of Carlos Chagas and his followers (Egler Chiari, UFMG). At the end, a synthesis of the new clinical and epidemiological aspects of Chagas Disease was presented (José Rodrigues Coura, Fiocruz).
The event took place on the initiative of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), with support from Fapemig and the Institute for Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies (Ieat) at UFMG.