Cláudia Guimas Almeida

Cláudia Guimas Almeida is a Principal Investigator at NOVA Medical School, where she leads the Neuronal Trafficking in Aging Laboratory within the iNOVA4Health research unit. Her research aims to understand how cellular aging and genetic risk factors in the endocytic pathway contribute to synaptic dysfunction and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). By combining mouse and human neuronal models, advanced imaging, and molecular and cellular neuroscience, her team investigates how endolysosomal trafficking defects drive early neuronal vulnerability in aging and neurodegeneration.
Cláudia graduated in Biochemistry (1999) and completed an MSc (2001) and PhD (2007) in Neuroscience at the University of Lisbon. During her PhD at Weill Cornell Medical College (New York), she uncovered how β-amyloid accumulation disrupts endosomal and synaptic function. As an EMBO and Marie Curie Fellow at Institut Curie (Paris), she specialized in membrane trafficking and quantitative bioimaging.
In 2013, she established her independent research group at NMS with support from the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) and has since consolidated her career through FCT CEEC funding and the iNOVA4Health Research Unit. She has published nearly 30 peer-reviewed articles (≈6,000 citations; h-index 21) and secured over €1 million in competitive funding from FCT, the European Commission, the Alzheimer’s Association, and La Caixa Research.
Beyond research, Cláudia co-coordinates the Master’s in Biomedical Research (NBR), serves on the NMS Scientific Council and NOVA University General Council, and is regularly invited to contribute to Alzforum.org and speak at international conferences.