APARECIDA SADAE TANAKA studied undergraduate Chemistry at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) in Araraquara, São Paulo – Brazil. She obtained her Ph.D. in Sciences from the Universidade Federal de São Paulo in 1993, under the supervision of Claudio A. M. Sampaio. She did a postdoctoral in the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) in Germany (1993-1995). In 1997, she got a position of Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM) –UNIFESP. In 2006, she obtained the title of Associate Professor – “Livre Docente” in the same Department, were she is currently Full Professor. The focus of the Tanaka’s Lab is biochemistry and molecular biology of diseases’ vectors. The group already described several new molecules from insects and ticks belonging to proteases and protease inhibitors families. In the present, the group has been focused in the role of those molecules in the vector-parasite or mosquito-virus interactions; and in the development of tools to vector control.
