About Dr Inês Castro
Dr Inês Castro is an Assistant Professor in Biology at Northeastern University London. She currently teaches the Biology courses for Northeastern University Mobility programmes. After obtaining her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Portugal, she moved to the UK to study cell biology for her PhD at the University of Exeter. She continued her research in organelle biology as a Postdoc at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Qualifications
PhD in Biosciences, University of Exeter (2016)
MSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Coimbra (2011)
BSc in Applied Biology, University of Minho (2009)
Email: ines.castro@nchlondon.ac.uk
Dr Inês Castro's Research
Dr Inês Castro’s research has been focused on understanding organelle function and interactions in several model organisms. As a PhD student, she studied peroxisomes, an essential cellular organelle involved in the beta-oxidation of fatty acids and the metabolism of reactive oxygen species. Using both in silico and in vivo techniques she was able to characterize the properties of tail-anchored proteins involved in targeting peroxisomes in mammalian cells. Furthermore, she focused on characterizing three of these proteins, identifying one of the first molecular links between peroxisomes and kinesin motors in mammalian cells, and the first ER-peroxisome contact site in mammalian cells.
As a Postdoctoral fellow, she focused on the identification and characterisation of contact site proteins in yeast. Taking advantage of high throughput techniques and fluorescence microscopy, she was able to identify over 100 potential contact site proteins across several different contact sites, and characterized proteins involved in lipid transport and metabolism.
Selected publications
Castro IG et al. Systematic analysis of membrane contact sites in Saccharomyces cerevisiae uncovers modulators of cellular lipid distribution (Under revision); Preprint available at bioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2021.10.17.464712
Bisinski DD, Castro IG et al. (2022) Cvm1 is a component of multiple vacuolar contact sites required for sphingolipid homeostasis. J Cell Biol 221 (8): e202103048. doi: 10.1083/jcb.202103048
Castro IG et al. (2019) Promethin is a conserved seipin partner protein. Cells 8 (3), 268. doi: 10.3390/cells8030268
Castro IG, Richards DM, Metz J, Costello JL, Passmore JB, Schrader TA, Gouveia A, Ribeiro D and Schrader M. (2018) A role for MIRO1 in motility and membrane dynamics of peroxisomes. Traffic 19 (3), 229-242. doi: 10.1111/tra.12549
Costello JL, Castro IG et al. (2017) Predicting the targeting of tail-anchored proteins to subcellular compartments in mammalian cells. J Cell Sci 130 (9), 1675-1687. doi: 10.1242/jcs.200204
Costello J, Castro IG et al. (2017) ACBD5 and VAPB mediate membrane associations between peroxisomes and the ER. J Cell Biol 216 (2), 331-342. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201607055
Full publication list: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4669-985X
Dr Inês Castro's Teaching
Dr Inês Castro will be teaching biology courses at Northeastern University London for the first-year study abroad students from Northeastern University in Boston.