News

CeMM Principal Investigator André Rendeiro has been awarded a prestigious Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). His project will combine large-scale human tissue imaging with advanced computational methods to unravel how aging manifests across different anatomical scales – from cells and tissues to organs – and how these changes contribute to the onset of age-associated diseases.

Aging is one of the most fundamental biological processes, yet many aspects remain poorly understood. While age-related diseases pose a major challenge to health and quality of life, it is still unclear how cellular-level changes translate into tissue-specific decline. Existing research is limited by the shortcomings of animal models, the focus on easily accessible organs in human studies, and a predominantly cell-centric perspective that often neglects the broader tissue architecture.

A map of human tissues

With the ERC-funded project, André Rendeiro and his team aim to systematically map structural features of human tissues, analyze age-associated deviations at high resolution, and integrate findings across scales. This approach will enable the discovery of subtle signals of aging that precede clinical pathology, potentially paving the way for earlier detection and intervention.

“By moving beyond a purely cell-focused view and quantifying how tissue architecture changes with age, we hope to redefine how we understand the onset of age-associated diseases,” says André Rendeiro. “Our project seeks to uncover the fundamental principles that link microanatomical alterations to organ function and pathology.”

The ERC Starting Grant will support this ambitious research over the next five years with EUR 1.5 million. With this award, André Rendeiro joins the growing list of CeMM Principal Investigators whose innovative projects have been recognized by the European Research Council.

Strong record of ERC funding at CeMM

Today, 13 Principal Investigators at CeMM are recipients of ERC grants, reflecting the institute’s strong position in European research. Their projects cover a wide range of topics, from aging and drug discovery to genomic medicine, clinical science, chemistry, disease models, and immunity. To foster such successes, CeMM actively supports its scientists in preparing for ERC applications, for example through the Pre-ERC Postdoc Program launched in 2021 and the ERC Master Class workshop organized within the EU-LIFE network, of which CeMM is a founding member.

About André Rendeiro

André Rendeiro is a Principal Investigator at CeMM since June 2022. He leads a group studying how cells interact to generate complex physiology in the human body, and how these interactions change over the lifespan of individuals and give rise to disease. To do that, his group develops computational methods for the analysis of spatial data (spatial transcriptomics, highly multiplexed imaging, histopathological images)—its integration with various modalities of molecular, demographic, and clinical data of individuals throughout their lifespan.

He earned his PhD in molecular medicine at CeMM, where he developed single-cell profiling methods applied to leukemia. As a postdoctoral associate at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, he advanced computational approaches for highly multiplexed tissue imaging and led efforts that produced the first single-cell resolution maps of lung pathology during COVID-19. He also contributed to studies of cancer, lung development, and immunology.