Vasco Barreto, PhD

Vasco M. Barreto (VMB) is an assistant professor at FCT (Universidade Nova) and Cooperativa de Ensino Superior – Egas Moniz , where he also heads the DNA Breaks lab/gene editing service “Genetagus”. VMB graduated in Biology at the Univ. of Lisbon (1994) and did his doctoral studies at the Inst. Pasteur in Paris, obtaining a Ph.D. degree in Immunology from the UPMC (2001). He then moved to The Rockefeller Univ. in New York, first as a Postdoc and then as a Research Associate, where he worked in the molecular mechanisms of antibody formation. He returned to Portugal in 2008 to launch his group at the IGC and address two hallmarks of B cells: 1) the interplay between the mechanisms that promote genetic diversity in somatic cells and DNA repair; 2) the epigenetics of mono-allelic expression. He was awarded a Ciencia 2008 contract to initiate his independent career at the IGC and then an Associate Researcher position (IF 2015), after which he moved to CEDOC (FCM, Universidade Nova), where from 2016 to 2022 he developed research work supported by 3 FCT grants. This has allowed him to make key contributions to the understanding of both the regulation of Activation-Induced Deaminase (AID), the editor of immunoglobulin genes, and the process of V(D)J recombination. VMB published as senior author in journals such as Nature Commun, filed a patent, and supervised 6 postdocs, 4 PhD students (3 graduated) and 4 MSc students (4 graduated). He reviewed for the FCT and major journals (eg Cell, J Exp Med, Nat Methods, Infect Genet and Evol, Nucleic Acids Res), was external examiner of 7 national and international theses, delivered invited talks at national meetings/institutions as well as abroad (Spain, Sweden, Israel) and (co-)organized modules of 4 international PhD programs as well as 2 national and 1 international scientific meetings. VMB collaborate(d) with world experts in his field (e.g., A Gimelbrant, Harvard Medical School, USA; A Ramiro, CNIC, Spain), served in 5 thesis committees and was appointed to the Selection Committee of the International Plants for Life PhD Program (2016), the Editorial Board of SpringerPlus (2015), and the Editorial Board of Developmental Epigenetics (2022).