CMSeminar – A systems-approach to unlock the biological secrets of inflammation, biological age acceleration and disease risk
📢 Join us for the next CMSeminar on January 22nd, 2026 titled “A systems-approach to unlock the biological secrets of inflammation, biological age acceleration and disease risk” with José Pedro Castro as a Keynote Speaker.
🕧 Time: 12:30 PM
📍 Location: Católica Medical School, Multicare Auditorium
In 2015, the José Pedro Castro concluded his PhD in Biomedicine, University of Porto. He then joined Tilman Grune’s (h-index >110, Google Scholar) lab to study how aging contributes to proteostasis loss and cellular dysfunction (2015-2018) leading to >15 papers published as first, contributing or even corresponding author. One relevant manuscript as senior author was recently accepted in Comms Biology (2023) showing how aging primarily affects fast skeletal muscle fibers.
In 2018, he joined Vadim Gladyshev’s lab (h-index >138, Google Scholar) at Harvard Medical School upon being awarded with the highly competitive DFG Max-Kade Foundation fellowship to study the biology of aging using systems biology approaches.
There, José Pedro Castro (JPC) was involved in several high-impact projects, such as validating in mice drug candidates predicted by transcriptomic signatures for lifespan extension (Cell Metabolism, under revision), testing early life effects of Rapamycin on mouse healthspan and lifespan (Science Advances, 2022), unraveling distinct longevity mechanisms across and within species and their association with aging (Cell, 2023), exploring exceptional longevity genetic architecture (Nature Comms, 2024) and unraveling aging mechanisms driving cancer trajectories (Nature Aging, 2024), just to mention a few.
These international postdoctoral experiences provided the JPC the know-how in experimental work (cells, tissues, animal models) and in bioinformatic analyses, which he finds critical for understanding the complexity of the biology of aging. Furthermore, JPC met top researchers in the field of aging, with whom he established instrumental enduring collaborations for future career and scientific goals as Vadim Gladyshev, Steve Horvath (Altos Labs), Richard Miller (Michigan Univ.), John Sedivy (Brown Univ.), Bjorn Schumacher (CECAD, Cologne), Joris Deelen (Leiden University). Upon returning to Portugal, JPC identified i3S as an ideal environment to further develop his career where he is currently building his own team.
Attesting the JPC supervision experience, 3 PhD, 6 MSc, 6 BSc, 1 Eramus + student successfully completed their degrees under his supervision. The JPC has received 9 awards and/or honors, including Early Research Career Award (2010) and Young Investigator Award (2013) and CEEC 5th Ed. Assistant Researcher (~280K€) being ranked third (2022.00872.CEECIND). He’s also a reviewer for several scientific journals and a review editor for Redox Biology and Frontiers in Aging. He is the corresponding author of 5 publications and has been awarded with a prestigious Grant from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (~$50K). He has also attracted national funding showcased by the FCT IC&DT (250K€) as Principal Investigator.
Regarding communication, José Pedro Castro has delivered invited talks (invited and keynote speaker) in international and national conferences (20 just in the last year). He was involved in teaching Immunology (IPP) (2020-2023) and he is currently an invited professor to teach Biogerontology and Nutrition & Aging (FMUP and NOVA Med School). These are all strong indicators that attest his scientific maturity to lead a project. Moreover, he has (as of today) an h-index of 23 (Google Scholar), reflecting the impact of the JPC’s research contributions within the scientific community, >3000 citations and >35 peer-reviewed published articles.
He has also been involved in dissemination activities such as co-founding Portuguese Society for Science and Longevity Medicine (SPMCLong, 2025) where he serves as vice-president. He has also given several interviews regarding his work on aging and longevity to TV (CNN Portugal, SIC, Porto Canal) and to newspapers (Público, DN, etc).
Altogether, this points to scientific recognition by peers and institutions, and a promising path towards a competitive and successfully scientific career in research, supervision and education. To sum up, the JPC has been studying the biology of aging for the past 16 years and is highly motivated to understand fundamental questions of the biology of aging but also to find novel biomarkers actionable for human healthspan maintenance.
👉 The session will be hosted by Isaura Martins.
🥪 To be eligible for a Lunch Box, you must register for the CMSeminar!
🎓 Free and open to the academic community!