Joao Pedro Magalhaes

Open problems in ageing science: a roadmap for biogerontology - GeroScience The field of ageing science has gone through remarkable progress in recent decades, yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered or unexplored. Here we present a curated list of 100 open problems ...

Open problems in ageing science: a roadmap for biogerontology
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Always a pleasure to visit @imbmainz.bsky.social and learn more about the exciting research on aging, epigenetics and evolution @unimainz.bsky.social

Thank you for the invitation and looking forward to fruitful collaborations 🙏

Great to see longevity being featured @natbiotech.nature.com but wouldn't statins also count as longevity drugs?

And if the best we can do is rebranding a weight-loss pill as longevity, then we need better science and less marketing.

Longevity needs rigor & innovation, not buzzwords.

Exciting opportunity @unibirmingham.bsky.social 🎓

We're recruiting 125th Anniversary Fellows and Chairs to help shape the future of discovery and innovation.

Any questions, please message me.

Deadline: 11 January 2026.

www.birmingham.ac.uk/jobs/125th-a...

miRNA changes with ageing and caloric restriction in male rat skeletal muscle: potential roles in muscle cell function - Biogerontology The mechanisms underlying skeletal muscle ageing, whilst poorly understood, are thought to involve dysregulated micro (mi)RNA expression. Using young and aged rat skeletal muscle tissue, we applied hi...

New study showing that aging rewires muscle microRNAs, but calorie restriction reverses many of these changes!

In rats, 35% of age-related miRNAs returned to youthful levels under CR, including pathways related to metabolism, autophagy & inflammation.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Open problems in ageing science: a roadmap for biogerontology - GeroScience The field of ageing science has gone through remarkable progress in recent decades, yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered or unexplored. Here we present a curated list of 100 open problems ...

I'm delighted to share our curated list of 100 open problems in ageing science.

This represents a collective, systematic effort to map the key challenges and knowledge gaps across biogerontology and offers a roadmap to guide future progress in geroscience.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

FOXM1 enhances DNA repair in aged cells to maintain the peripheral heterochromatin barrier to senescence enhancers DNA damage is a key driver of aging, contributing to epigenetic erosion, senescence, and chronic inflammation. However, genoprotective strategies to counteract aging remain intangible. Here we show th...

FOXM1 enhances DNA repair in aged cells to maintain the peripheral heterochromatin barrier to senescence enhancers
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What is the Retirement Age of a Jedi? by João Pedro de Magalhães Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.

Excited to share my new piece @clarkesworldmagazine.com 🚀

I discuss the future of human longevity and its depiction in science fiction. And how the eventual medical control of aging and lifespan will reshape both society and storytelling.

clarkesworldmagazine.com/de_magalhaes...

Distinct senotypes in p16- and p21-positive cells across human and mouse aging tissues | The EMBO Journal imageimageCyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p16Ink4a and p21Cip1 are commonly used markers of cellular senescence, however their heterogeneity in vivo remains unclear. This comparative data analysis ...

Distinct senotypes in p16- and p21-positive cells across human and mouse aging tissues
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

A full life cycle biological clock based on routine clinical data and its impact in health and diseases - Nature Medicine The biological clock model LifeClock predicts biological age across all life stages from routine clinical data, revealing distinct pediatric and adult disease risk patterns.

A full life cycle biological clock based on routine clinical data and its impact in health and diseases
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New (and provocative) piece with David Gems 🚨

Extending healthspan rather than lifespan should not be the goal of aging research.

Rather, our goal is to understand and intervene in aging to improve late-life health and save of lives: i.e. life-extension.

www.preprints.org/manuscript/2...

Evidence for improved DNA repair in long-lived bowhead whale - Nature Analysis of the longest-lived mammal, the bowhead whale, reveals an improved ability to repair DNA breaks, mediated by high levels of cold-inducible RNA-binding protein.  &nbs...

Evidence for improved DNA repair in long-lived bowhead whale
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Living healthily to 120: Implications for entrepreneurship Research on how to slow, halt, and reverse aging processes is making progress. Pharmaceutical, big-tech, and venture capital companies and their owner…

Living healthily to 120: Implications for entrepreneurship
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Talking genetics, aging, and the brain at beautiful Coimbra, Portugal.

Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s remain devastating and without treatment. How can we harness advances in longevity drugs and cellular rejuvenation to develop new therapies?

Frontiers | Circadian system and aging: where both times interact Time shapes life both through its steady progression, as seen in aging, and through its eternal return, reflected in biological rhythms. These two temporal f...

Circadian system and aging: where both times interact
www.frontiersin.org/journals/agi...

Organ‐Specific Dedifferentiation and Epigenetic Remodeling in In Vivo Reprogramming Transient in vivo expression of Yamanaka factors (OSKM) enhances regenerative competence and rejuvenation across multiple tissues. We highlight mechanistic links between injury-induced dedifferentiat...

Organ-Specific Dedifferentiation and Epigenetic Remodeling in In Vivo Reprogramming
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Developing and applying computational methods to study ageing and cellular rejuvenation at University of Birmingham on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Developing and applying computational methods to study ageing and cellular rejuvenation at University of Birmingham, listed on FindAPhD.com

PhD studentship available in our lab to study ageing, longevity and cellular rejuvenation using computational methods and machine learning/AI.

Applications are open to UK and international students.

Deadline: 27 November 2025.

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Aging as a Loss of Goal‐Directedness: An Evolutionary Simulation and Analysis Unifying Regeneration with Anatomical Rejuvenation The paper proposes that the root cause of aging is the loss of anatomical goal-directedness after development. Using evolutionary neural cellular automata simulations, the authors show that after the....

Aging as a Loss of Goal-Directedness: An Evolutionary Simulation and Analysis Unifying Regeneration with Anatomical Rejuvenation
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Six Drivers of Aging Identified Among Genes Differentially Expressed With Age A meta-analysis of 25 transcriptomic datasets from mammalian tissues revealed 45 genes consistently upregulated or downregulated with age. Orthologs of these genes were functionally evaluated using C...

Six Drivers of Aging Identified Among Genes Differentially Expressed With Age
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Human Cell Aging Transcriptome Atlas (HCATA): a single-cell atlas of age-associated transcriptomic alterations across human tissues - Communications Biology The Human Cell Aging Transcriptome Atlas contains single cell RNA-sequencing data from 3,475 human samples and interactive tools to explore age-related alterations in gene expression and go term enrichment in a diverse set of tissues and cell types.

Human Cell Aging Transcriptome Atlas (HCATA): a single-cell atlas of age-associated transcriptomic alterations across human tissues
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Ten mouse organs proteome and metabolome atlas from adult to aging - Genome Medicine Background Aging is a complex biological process characterized by progressive molecular alterations across multiple organ systems, significantly influencing disease susceptibility and mortality. Unraveling molecular interactions driving aging is crucial for interventions promoting healthy aging and mitigating senescence. However, the systemic mechanisms governing both inter-organ interactions and organ-specific aging trajectories remain incompletely characterized. Methods To investigate the molecular dynamics of aging, we conducted a systematic multi-omics analysis of 400 tissue samples collected from 10 organs (brain, heart, intestine, kidney, liver, lung, muscle, skin, spleen, and stomach) in mice at four distinct life stages: 4, 8, 12, and 20 months (from youth to elderly). Proteomic profiling was performed using data-independent acquisition (DIA) technology, while metabolomic analysis was performed in both positive and negative ion modes. Differential expression analysis of proteins and metabolites was employed to construct a comprehensive multi-organ aging dataset. Results Proteomic profiling across ten organs at four age stages identified a total of 14,763 protein groups (PGs). Of these, 18 proteins, including Ighm, C4b, and Hpx, exhibited consistent age-related differential expression patterns across all ten organs. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted the humoral immune response as a primary driver of age-related expression changes. Additionally, this study mapped a set of age-unique proteins, such as Hp, Egf, and Arg, with distinct expression patterns in aging organs. Metabolic analysis identified 3779 metabolites, with key aging-related metabolites such as NAD+, inosine, xanthine, and hypoxanthine showing significant expression changes across multiple organs. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed consistent alterations in purine metabolism, pyrimidine metabolism, riboflavin metabolism, and nicotinate/nicotinamide metabolism during multi-organ aging. Conclusions This study provides a multi-omics atlas of multi-organ aging, revealing both intra- and inter-organ similarities and heterogeneities. These findings offer valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying geriatric health decline and serve as a foundational resource for organism-systematic early warning and targeted interventions against aging-associated pathologies.

Ten mouse organs proteome and metabolome atlas from adult to aging
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Had a fantastic time speaking at the NEXii Longevity Congress 2025 in my hometown of Porto!

Grateful to be part of this conference exploring how longer, healthier lives will reshape our future.

Big thanks to the organizers and everyone involved 🙏

FEBS Press Cells can enter a stress response state termed cellular senescence that is involved in various diseases and aging. Detecting these cells is challenging due to the lack of universal biomarkers. This r...

Overview of molecular signatures of senescence and associated resources: pros and cons
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Aging-TCA: a cross-species single-cell transcriptomic atlas for studying testicular aging - BMC Genomics The testis, with the highest number of transcriptionally active genes among human tissues, offers a unique window into how aging affects complex gene regulation. Recent advancements in single-cell RNA sequencing have enabled multi-species studies of aging-related transcriptome changes in testes. However, a comprehensive aging-related cross-species platform for analyzing testicular single-cell transcriptomes remains absent. To address this gap, we developed Aging-TCA (Aging-related Testicular Cell Atlas, available at http://tca.xielab.tech/)— a comprehensive online platform containing aging-related testicular single cell and spatial transcriptome profiles from human, cynomolgus monkey, mouse, and zebrafish across 89 samples and over 460, 000 testicular cells, nuclei or spots. Aging-TCA provides versatile tools for temporal and spatial analyzing testicular aging, including aging-related testicular gene expression visualization, cell-cell communication comparisons, cell-trajectory analysis, gene regulatory network analysis, testicular cell type auto-identification, time-series analysis, and spatial transcriptome comparisons. In summary, we provide a novel platform Aging-TCA for advancing cross-species research into testicular aging, facilitating future investigations in this field.

Aging-TCA: a cross-species single-cell transcriptomic atlas for studying testicular aging
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Dark Prague was the perfect place to talk about longevity and fighting aging.

Aging isn’t natural. It’s legacy code. A software design flaw. And we’re learning how to rewrite it.

Aging: the wound that never starts healing - Nature Communications Aging is a complex process resulting in a decline in organ function. Here the authors proposes that chronic activation of tissue damage response mechanisms drives aging, with aged organs displaying features similar to those seen after acute injury. This provides a unifying framework for understanding the aging process and suggests new directions for treating age-related diseases.

Aging: the wound that never starts healing
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

YouTube video by RAZOR Science Show Do bats hold the secret to human longevity?

Do bats hold the secret to human longevity?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HSp...

On this Longevity Day, I questioned the field’s focus on healthspan, argued we need to be more creative and ambitious, and suggested that aging is driven not by molecular damage but by genetic programs.

Had fun at TransVision 2025 in Madrid, though I may not have made many friends 😀

The evolution of asymmetrical regulation of physiology is central to aging The evolutionary biology of aging is fundamental to understanding the mechanisms of aging and how to develop anti-aging treatments. Thus far most evolutionary theory concerns the genetics of aging wit...

The evolution of asymmetrical regulation of physiology is central to aging
arxiv.org/abs/2509.15911

Supercentenarian gives scientists insight on secrets of healthy old age Tests on Maria Branyas Morera, who was world’s oldest person before she died aged 117, gave doctors a trove of discoveries

Supercentenarian gives scientists insight on secrets of healthy old age
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...