Professor João Pedro de Magalhães, Genomics of Ageing and Rejuvenation Lab, Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham

Prof de Magalhaes graduated in Microbiology in 1999 from the Escola Superior de Biotecnologia in his hometown of Porto, Portugal, and then in 2004 obtained a PhD from the University of Namur in Belgium. Following a postdoc with genomics pioneer Prof George Church at Harvard Medical School, in 2008 Prof de Magalhaes joined the University of Liverpool, and in 2022, he was recruited to the University of Birmingham as Chair of Molecular Biogerontology. He currently leads the Genomics of Ageing and Rejuvenation Lab (https://rejuvenomicslab.com/) in the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing. His lab studies the ageing process and how we can manipulate it to fend off age-related diseases and improve human health. Prof de Magalhaes has authored over 100 publications and given over 200 invited talks, including three TEDx talks. He also makes regular media appearances (BBC, CNN, the Washington Post, the Financial Times and many others). Prof de Magalhaes is an advisor/consultant for various organizations, including nonprofit foundations, universities, investment funds and biotech companies. He was CSO of Swiss-based biotech company Centaura until 2021 and is currently CSO of YouthBio Therapeutics, a US-based biotech company developing rejuvenation gene therapies based on partial reprogramming by Yamanaka factors. Prof de Magalhaes founded Oxford Cryotechnology (https://oxfordcryotech.com/), a company employing computational and machine learning-guided design to develop improved cryopreservation methods with broad applications.