João Vaz Silva

Alzheimer's Disease
Pathology
Intracellular trafficking
Endosomes
Exosomes
Rab35
Tau
APP
Aβ

João Vaz Silva (MD, PhD) graduated in Medicine at the School of Medicine – University of Minho (EM-UM). He obtained a PhD in Medicine in a joint program between EM-UM and Columbia University (USA). Currently, he is a Pathology Resident at IPO-Porto, an invited Assistant Professor at the EM-UM and also an affiliated Researcher at ICVS Institute.
His research work is focused on the influence of intracellular trafficking dynamics on the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), namely Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) misprocessing and Tau hyperphophorylation and accumulation, and comprehend the impact of AD risk factors, such as chronic stress/glucocorticoids and ageing, on these intracellular pathways. He aims to develop clinical translational work to study prognostic and staging potential of these membrane trafficking pathways and its by-products. His research work has been published in high-impact research journals.

João Vaz Silva

Alzheimer's Disease
Pathology
Intracellular trafficking
Endosomes
Exosomes
Rab35
Tau
APP
Aβ

Scientific Highlights

Publications:

1. Vaz-Silva J, Gomes P, Jin Q, Zhu M, Zhuravleva V, Quintremil S, Meira T, Silva J, Soares-Cunha C, Daskalakis N, Sousa N, Sotiropoulos I, Waites CL (2018) Endolysosomal degradation of Tau and its role in glucocorticoid‐driven hippocampal malfunction. The EMBO Journal 10.15252/embj.201899084

2. Vaz-Silva J*, Zhuravleva V*, Zhu M, Gomes P, Silva JM, Sousa N, Sotiropoulos I, Waites CL (2021). “Rab35 and glucocorticoids regulate APP and BACE1 trafficking to modulate Aβ production”, Cell Death and Disease

3. Lopes S, Vaz-Silva J, Pinto V, Dalla C, Kokras N, Bedenk B, Mack N, Czisch M, Almedia OFX, Sousa N, Sotiropoulos I (2016) Tau protein is essential for stress-induced brain pathology. PNAS USA 10.1073/pnas.1600953113

4. Lopes S, Tetlytska L, Vaz-Silva J, Dioli C, Trindade R, Morais M, Webhofer C, Almeida OFX, Turck C, Sousa N, Sotiropoulos I*, Filiou MD* (2016) Tau depletion prevents stress-induced dendritic atrophy in prefontal cortex: role of synaptic mitochondria. Cerebr Cortex 10.1093/cercor/bhw057

5. Pinheiro S, Silva J, Mota C, Vaz-Silva J, Veloso A, Pinto V, Sotiropoulos I (2015) Tau mislocation in glucocorticoid-triggered hippocampal pathology. Mol Neurobiol 10.1007/s12035-015-9356-2

6. Dunn M, Boltaev U, Beskow A, Pampou S, Realubit R, Meira T, Silva JV, Reeb R, Karan C, Jockusch S, Sulzer D, Chang YT, Sames D, Waites CL (2017) Identification of Fluorescent Small Molecule Compounds for Synaptic Labeling by Image-Based, High-Content Screening. ACS Chem Neurosci. 10.1021/acschemneuro.7b00263.

Awards:

1. Awarded a PhD Scholarship by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (2014)

2. Awarded a scholarship for Research Clerkship at Harvard Medical School (USA) – Department of Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology granted by Luso-American Foundation (2012)

3. “Janssen Innovation Prize – Portugal” (2016) for the development of research excellence – Winning Team

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Projects

As Leader

Projects

As Member

Ioannis Sotiropoulos

Chronic Stress as the connecting parameter between stress-related depression & Alzheimer’s disease

Although cumulative evidence suggests a continuum between depression and AD, and stress is suggested to play a detrimental role in both diseases…

Ioannis Sotiropoulos

Understanding the role of chronic stress as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia, affects nearly 44 million people worldwide and costs over $600 billion/year (1% of the world’s GDP)…

Ioannis Sotiropoulos

Unrevealing the multifacial role of Tau protein in the adult brain homeostasis beyond Alzheimer’s disease

While Tau protein is originally described as a mainly axonal, microtubule-associated protein, accumulating evidence supports the multiple roles of Tau in different cell…