Geraldo Aleixo da Silva Passos Júnior

Graduated in Biology from UNESP State University São Paulo, Brazil (1980-83), Master MSc (1984-86) and PhD (1986-88) in Biochemistry from Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, USP, Brazil. His postdoctoral studies were conducted at the Molecular Genetics Institute of Montpellier (CNRS, Montpellier, France), (1992-94). Then he worked during several years (1997-2017) in close collaboration at INSERM U1090 in Marseille (France) studying the large scale gene expression (transcriptome) of the mouse thymus gland. Currently he is an Associate Professor (Genetics and Molecular Biology) at School of Dentistry and Ribeirão Preto Medical School University of São Paulo, Campus of Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. He is the coordinator of the Molecular Immunogenetics Group (http://sites.usp.br/imunogenetica/), whose research lab is located at Department of Genetics, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, USP. He is the coordinator of the FAPESP Thematic Project Using Crispr-Cas9 System to Edit the Aire Gene in mTEC Cells. Editor of the book Thymus Transcriptome and Cell biology (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-77921-3) published in 2025 by Springer Nature Switzerland AG. His expertise is on molecular genetics, focusing mainly on the following topics: functional genomics (transcriptome analysis of mRNAs, miRNAs and lncRNAs) of the immune system (Aire gene, Fezf2gene, single-cell transcriptome profiling, induction of indel mutations in the Aire and Fezf2 genes by using CRISPR-Cas9, microRNAs, lncRNAs and autoimmunity). He also works on projects on gene expression regulation during osteoblastic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells isolated from human dental pulp. He was the adviser of two PhD theses awarded by CAPES Ministry of Education (2008 CAPES Thesis Award and 2010 CAPES Thesis Honor in Genetics). (Fonte: Currículo Lattes)