João Malato

Short description

I'm a Biomedicine and Computational Biology PhD student currently working between LGraca Lab at Institute of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, and the Immune-Stats Group at the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science, Warsaw University. I'm also a Student Member of SPE: the Portuguese Statistical Society; and a Non-PhD Member of CEAUL: Centre of Statistics and its Applications from the University of Lisbon. My previous studies were a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Biostatistics.

I'm very much interested in bioinformatics applications, autoimmunity, and diseases with complex diagnosis such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a multifactorial illness with no biomarker and a heterogeneous affected population. For my recent research, I've been working with DNA methylation and gene expression data from ME/CFS patients to infer on population-related risks towards COVID-19, and using serology and immunological cellular compartments' data to study alternative cohort stratification and immunological profiling methods, dealing with the effects of misclassification trying to identify signatures for specific groups of patients.

Selected publications

Malato, J., Sotzny, F., Bauer, S., Freitag, H., Fonseca, A., Grabowska, A. D., Graça, L., Cordeiro, C., Nacul, L., Lacerda, E. M., Castro-Marrero, J., Scheibenbogen, C., Westermeier, F. & Sepúlveda, N. (2021). The SARS-CoV-2 receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: a meta-analysis of public DNA methylation and gene expression data. Heliyon, 7(8), e07665.

Malato, J., Graça, L., Nacul, L., Lacerda, E., & Sepúlveda, N. (2021). Statistical challenges of investigating a disease with a complex diagnosis. medRxiv.

Malato, J., Ribeiro, R. M., Leite, P. P., Casaca, P., Fernandes, E., Antunes, C., Fonseca, V. R., Gomes, M. C., Graca, L. (2022). Risk of BA.5 infection in individuals exposed to prior SARS-CoV-2 variants. medRxiv.

Malato, J., Ribeiro, R. M., Fernandes, E., Leite, P. P., Casaca, P., Antunes, C., Fonseca, V. R., Gomes, M. C., Graca, L. (2022). Rapid waning of protection induced by prior BA.1/BA.2 infection against BA.5 infection. medRxiv.

Education

  • Present PhD in Biomedicine and Computational Biology

  • 2018 MSc in Biostatistics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal

  • 2015 BSc in Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal

Additional information

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