Hernandez Moura Silva
Assistant Professor of Biology Core Member, The Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard
- PhD, 2011, University of São Paulo Heart Institute
- MSc, Molecular Biology, 2008, University of Brasilia
- BS, 2005, Biology, University of Brasilia
Professor Hernandez Moura Silva completed a Master’s Degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Brasília in 2008 and a PhD in Immunology from the University of São Paulo School of Medicine in 2011, both of them in Brazil.
He decided to expand his scientific horizons and moved to New York City to perform his postdoctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Juan J. Lafaille (a former MIT biology post doc at Susumu Tonegawa’s lab) at the New York University School of Medicine.
His postdoctoral work highlighted how perivascular macrophage subpopulations within the white adipose tissue contribute to the maintenance of immune-metabolic homeostasis. He uncovered a central regulator of perivascular macrophage activity, the transcription factor c-MAF. By disrupting c-MAF in a cell-specific manner, he showed that perivascular macrophages regulate the formation of the white adipose tissue vasculature network and that embryonically derived perivascular macrophages contribute to the pathophysiology of metabolic syndrome. These observations are especially compelling when considering the increasing incidence of type 2 diabetes/ metabolic syndrome across Western populations and beyond.
At MIT Biology, Professor Hernandez Moura Silva’s research will focus on understanding cellular and molecular circuits mediated by immune cells that modulate organ and tissue physiology/metabolism. Hernandez Moura Silva joined the Department of Biology as an Assistant Professor in Jan 2022.